June 27, 2025 • 53 mins
Jerry Bruckheimer talks F1: The Movie. Plus, GM Chief Engineer Tony Roma hints at the future of a Corvette SUV - and why the Cadillac CTS-V Blackwing may be Matt's most favorite car, ever.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is
Hot Pursuit.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
All right, we have a double feature for you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Is there first?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I think it is kind of like last week we
had our Toto Wolf podcast and then the bonus episode.
I don't know if you noticed that we put out
a bonus episode on our trip to France for the
twenty four hours of Lamont. Yes, this week, I didn't
know that. Yeah, we did see. I knew you wouldn't.
That's why I said I knew I wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I was thinking, do I tell him I don't actually
know that we've done that.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I knew it, so I think a lot of our
listeners might have missed it too. But yes, so we
put out a TV special. It's also on YouTube. It's
on Bloomberg dot Com, but it's on wherever you get
your podcasts as well. You can just listen to it today.
We have two pretty incredible guests. One is the producer
(01:05):
of Top Gun as well.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
That you're your go to for Bruckheimer. Is that your instant?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I think it's his famous as of thunder.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And not Gone in sixty seconds.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I mean Armageddon. Armageddon is probably my favorite movie that
he's done.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's unbelievable, yealy thing that he's been a part of.
And he's eighty one and he is sharp. Yes, oh my,
he is dialed in. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, he's pretty cool. So you and I got to
sit down with him on his satellite media tour, so
not with him, but on the same kind of radio
waves and talk about his new movie, F One, the movie.
We actually just sat down with Total Wolf for an
hour as well for our podcast, and he gives you
(01:55):
sends you his best and said he's really impressed by
the realism of the film. Tell us how important that
was to you to get it right from you know,
from a realism aspect.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, it's really important. I mean, we did it with
Top Gun Maverick. We want to do it again with
F one. Took It was a four year process to
get this thing off the ground and in the right way.
It took almost a year to make F one comfortable
with what we were doing. That was really part of
our journey to make sure that Stefano. What happened is
(02:28):
Brad myself and Joe Kozinski, who directed the movie, flew
to London and sat down with Stefano and said, here's
the movie we want to make. We want to make
sure that they actually drive the cars, our actors, and
how do we get this done. Fortunately, we had Lewis Hamilton,
who's a partner. He was terrific. He's one of the
producers on the movie. He made sure that we got
(02:50):
it right. But that creates a problem because you have
Lewis Hamilton, who's at the time in Mercedes and they
have this huge rivalry were with Red Bull, so Red
Bull for sure was going to be the villain in
their minds. So it took us almost a year to
get all these teams comfortable and drivers comfortable that we're
going to tell a story about our two drivers and
f one which has ten teams two drivers to each team.
(03:11):
But it's the only sport in the world where your
teammate is also your competitor, so everybody wants to be
the number one driver. So how do we navigate this
with all these teams and make sure the FIA is comfortable.
And it took us a year, but we got there,
and we got unprecedented access access to the tracks, to.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
The drivers, we interviewed everybody. Everything.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I don't know if you've seen the movie, but everything
you see in the movie is accurate, happened at one
time during F one over the last seventy five years.
Some of the things the antics that the drivers have pulled,
but the fact that Brad and Damson took four months
off to get in these cars, and we start them
in a road car, put them in an F four car,
put them in a F three car, and finally got
(03:52):
them into our car, which was built and created by Mercedes.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
As I said earlier.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Jerry, we've seen Formula one really grow in popularity in
the US, especially in the last few years. What about
motorsport is so compelling to you personally but also to viewers.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, I grew up in Detroit, so that's motor city.
So right away I'm interested in cars to be in with.
It's ingrained in my DNA, but that sport is And
I really didn't know much about F one until I
saw Drive to Survive. And it was really Joe Kozinski
who came up with the story and came to me
after we finished F one. He said, we should make
this movie about this extraordinary sport. So I think that.
(04:35):
As I said, the first call we really made was
to Lewis and say, come on in and brother. One
of the prerequisites for the story to get Brad involved,
he said, I have to drive. I'm not going to
make a movie that's going to be greenstream, green screen
and process. So that's they took the energy in time
to spend four months driving these cars.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
How much of a problem was his age, you know,
because we're seeing these kids driving Formula one that are
I mean, Kenny's eighteen years old, right, so Brad Pitt
has to be at least as old as me as
in the second half of his century.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
How did you overcome that?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Take a look at him. He doesn't look like he
looks amazing. He takes care of himself. He worked out.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
When he wasn't on the track, he was in the
gym working out to make sure he could handle the
rigors of this sport. It's so difficult to drive these cars,
and you know they're in Singapore. It's over one hundred
degrees most of one hundred and twenty and those cars,
they are exhausted. So Brad and Damson trained off the
(05:39):
track and then they drove, so they were in really
good shape by the time when we started the movie,
so they could handle the brutality of what these cars
throw you through. You're going in five g's in some
of these corners, but you know, Toto and Christian, all
these these team principles really helped us fred Zach to
create a story that accurate, and we interviewed everybody. I
(06:03):
don't know if you've seen the movie, but this whole
thing with the socks where he has two Miss Max
socks that came from Williams who told us that one
of their drivers came to the track and had two
Miss Max socks and the first time he ever won
a race, so he did that. From there on, a
lot of them are superstitious. We use that in the movie.
This was a great experience for meeting because we're so lucky.
(06:26):
We get dropped into a world will never be a
part of and live that life in this instance for
four years, and that's what we do for an audience.
We drop you into a world which is F one,
which is really exciting, and make you feel what it's
really like to be an F one driver and be
part of an F one team, and that takes you
on a journey. This movie is so immersive between the
(06:48):
sound the visuals, but it's always about the emotion. It's
not about all the bells and whistles. And you don't
have to know anything about driving or know anything about
F one to really enjoy this movie. In fact, most
people will come into this film, especially from this country,
know very little about F one, but by the time
they leave, they're interested in the sport. They feel they've
(07:09):
had an amazing ride because we've transported them into another place,
another time, and they feel a part of that experience.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Jerry, Obviously, we've had some other great driving and racing
films in the past.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Of course, Steve McQueen made one or two Ford Versus
Ferrari pretty popular. Were there films that you referred to
either as a do this or don't.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Do that when you were creating this film.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I think, you know, Joe and Brad and everybody looked
at all those movies and they learned from them. And
what's interesting is the technology that they had versus the
technology that we have is so different. I mean, our
cameras are a third the size of what we use
in Top Gun, and we had six of those in
the cockpit now it's even smaller. We had fifteen camera
(07:59):
positions on our car. You only could use four at
a time, and it was even harder for our guys
to drive than the real drivers because they had four
cameras staring at them all the time, so they had
to look around these cameras while they were driving the movie.
We also created a special type of camera that we
didn't have, a top gun, which is a remote control
(08:20):
camera which can pan and move as we're going one
hundred and eighty miles an hour, So we had to
build antennas are all around the track to be able
to use this remote camera. So that adds to the
excitement and the thrill of the movie. What we're trying
to do is be seamless, so you don't realize that
we're actually making the movie, that you're following the story,
you're excited by it, and you're in that F one
(08:42):
car with our characters.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Jerry, I have not gotten a chance to see it yet.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
When I do, want to make sure and see it
in a theater because I want that experience of the
big screen. I want the Dolby Atmos playing all around me.
How important is it to you that people see your
films in the theater as as opposed to on streaming
at home on a TV.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Look for this movie. You want to see it on
the biggest screen possible. You want to go to Imax.
You want to hear that Dobe sound that at most
it's just so experiential to be part of it.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
It's a thrill.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
If you want to go and have a thrill for
a night with your wife or your girlfriend or your friends,
this is the perfect outing. It's something that's a gives
you a lift, makes you feel good, takes you away
from the chaos in the world for over two hours.
And that's what we try to do. Let's forget about everything.
Let's forget about the world, and you get in Brad
Pitt's world and Damson's world and Javar by Damn and
(09:39):
Carrie Conyon, which is a fantastic cast. A lot of
Academy Awards in there and nominations in that group.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
So it's they're the best of the best.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And we had Aaron Kruger write the screenplay, who wrote
Top Gun Maverick, So you're gonna get the same kind
of thrills we gave you in that movie.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Jerry, I have to ask, since you've made this film,
are you now a fan a race fan? Are you
a formula fan? And who's your team and who's your driver?
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Well, obviously it has to be Lewis.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I mean, it can't be anybody else because he's a
great friend and a phenomenal driver. And Ferrari was terrific,
as was Toto in making this film. In fact, we
have Toto in the movie and Fred from Ferrari and
Zach are actually in the movie as a bunch of
other christian Is and they're all kind of have moments
(10:30):
in the film, as a lot of the drivers do too.
So that was fun just being in their world. And
I love it now. I followed every week.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That was Jerry Brookheimer f one. The movie is one
that you have seen already, Hannah, And I'm going to
this afternoon to catch the matinee in the Imax.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'm so glad you're going to see it in the Imax.
I think that's the way to go. Yeah, you're gonna
be I want you to let me know what you
think of it. I hope you like it. I really
think you will.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I'm really pumped and I will say that so Jerry
Brookheimer's made all these incredible films. And obviously I love
Top Gun and Days of Thunder and Armageddon. I love
liv Tyler, but.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
We all do.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But I don't love those movies that much. Right, What
I really love is Brad pitt movies. Like for me,
he is maybe because of my age, like I think
he might be my favorite Hollywood star.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Then I'm gonna have to say something that I've been
trying to hold back and not say, but I'm gonna
say it to you. I need you to look at
Brad's face in this film, and you'll have a lot
of opportunities to do so. And I want you to
tell me what you think he's done to his face.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Oh, you think he's had some work done.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I think there's some filler action and it's.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That's a huge bummer.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I know, I know. And I didn't want to talk
about this because it's maybe it's superficial or whatever, but
like male movie stars get better when they get older,
and I'm just so surprised. Yeah, he is not being
allowed to a.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well it's fair enough. Look, people talk about when women
get work done. Obviously we would talk about it if
he ruined his lips you know.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Or Nicole Kidman's whole journey. You know, we've talked about
that for years.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
But you're right, Yeah, dudes don't typically do that or
that we know of or that we talk about.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Right, I mean, it's subtle, but his face is different somehow,
and it's I just need you to look at it
and tell me, as a self professed Brad Pitt fan
that you just said because this is not there are
no cheekbones there. That's I just need you to tell
me that's a real bummer after you see it.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I mean, I don't love Brad Pitt because I'm in
love with Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, well I didn't think you were.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I love his especially his like the bit roles he does,
like True Romance or burn after reading.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He's funny, Yeah, funny he is.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
He is very funny, and it's it catches you kind
of unaware because he looks like this sort of know
Thelma and Louise, Yes, handsome honk. That's kind of brainless,
you know, But no, he's but he actually has some
wit and intelligence that is disarming as well.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Anyway, Wait, I just I'm sorry, I have to keep
on this. What's your favorite Brad Pitt film because mine's
Fight Club.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I would say Fury probably, and I also love Inglorious
Bastard's Okay, but Fury, I tend. I tend to like
the sort of spy and war movies.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
And did you watch Wolves?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yes? Did not think it.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I didn't even finish it. No, And apparently this is
a F one tie in. Apparently Apple had considered putting
Wolves in theaters and decided not to because I didn't
want to risk a poor box office with that film,
which I thought was interesting. And of course Apple originals
created F one, the movie they did decide to put
(14:01):
in theaters. I just think that that whole thing is
very interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That is, I mean, I think Brad Pitt is one
of those like Tom Cruise, where I think he almost
hasn't done a bad movie. There are you could say
cool Runnings, you know, was not great, but Wolves wasn't good.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I didn't even know there was no there was not compelling.
I was shocked, complete sleeper.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
But you know, the main thing I love about Brad
Pitt probably isn't his movies, but his love of motorcycles
and you know, his extracurricular hobbies like that. So but
what do I know?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I don't, you know plenty, I don't.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
What I do love and what I have been talking
about a lot lately is this Cadillac CT five V
Black Wing. I finally got to drive it. It's pretty
amazing and it's pretty shocking that nobody else, no other
automaker in the world, is a to produce a big
V eight in a four door sedan with a stick shift.
(15:06):
Only only General Motors can do this.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, and I couldn't believe that. Tony actually told us
how many they make and told us the take rate
on that stick shift and explained why they can't put
one in a Corvette.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, I mean he was.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
He was relatively forthcoming, I thought, actually true.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So spoiler alert, we're going to talk to Tony Roma,
who made the CT five V Black Wing with the team.
I'm sure he would be quick to say he made
the Cadillac Celestique. Is that how you say it?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I say celestic? Yeah, you know, like stars celestic.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
But you, I guess, were there with him at the launch.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yes, yeah, nice guy.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And now he's taken over from Tad Juchter as the
head of Corvette and he breaks some news with us
on Corvette too, which I think is the biggest headline.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So I'm driving this ram truck today. He just went
and picked it up in New Jersey and it's got
the Hurricane five to ten, which is an in line six,
and it's a fine motor. I guess. It's definitely putting
out better numbers, higher horsepower, more torque, it's turbocharged, but
(16:19):
it just doesn't feel as good to drive. And the
same thing happened when Ford replaced the six point two
liters V eight in the Raptor with a three and
a half liter turbocharged V six. Like it had higher
horse power, it fasters zero to sixty, you know, quicker acceleration,
but it just doesn't feel as rewarding.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
See I honestly, Matt, I don't get that, because, like,
if you're saying all of the numbers are improved, what
are you not getting other than some sort of just
X factor that's in your brain because you know the engine.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
No, it's it's not just that I know it like
subconsciously and hear it. I can feel it. Yeah, it
just it's not as doesn't have the kind of warmth
or fullness of a V eight.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Just but see, now we're getting not that I disagree,
I'm I'm just saying like, this is an interesting thing
because now we're getting into sort of qualitative assessments about
that car. You know, it's the difference between Yeah, all
the numbers are better, and all the numbers check out,
but somehow and then you start to sound a little
(17:32):
woo woo when you talk about it. But you're talking
about like warmth and all of these things that are
impossible to quantify, but they are real.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
You're right, No, you're right. There is one thing that
you could probably quantify, which is there's definitely a lag
both in the Eco Boost and in the Hurricane five
to ten. Now, maybe there's a lag in the V
eight that I just don't notice as much because it
(18:02):
instantly makes more sound and vibrations. But I I just
to me, it doesn't matter if it goes zero to
sixty in three and a half seconds or zero sixty
in four and a half seconds. And you know, at
some point the numbers get so high that it just, yeah,
(18:25):
isn't useful.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
This is what I struggle with when I'm reviewing cars,
because when you're writing things down and you're literally showing
the numbers, but then it says one thing, But then
when you get in the car and drive it, you
feel something different, as something that might imply numbers aren't everything.
It's hard to convince people because until you've driven it,
(18:49):
you know. It's like, for instance, with McLaren's. McLaren's are
kind of perfect cars on paper, yep, and you know
they're they're extreme. They're like the tech engineer type of
car that that that that type of brain loves. But
for whatever reason, I think McLaren has struggled creating a
visceral emotional connection to some of their cars. And I
(19:12):
don't know why, I'm not an engineer.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, I think it's even happening. So I drove the
Carrera GTS, you know, the new nine to eleven that
you drove last year in Spain. I find it's the hybrid, yes, so,
and it's so good, especially the transmission is so good
that you just don't feel anything. You know, of course
(19:37):
it's way faster or you know, we are gonna hear
from Tony Roma, who makes makes the CT five V
black Wing for Cadillac, or he did and now he's
at Corvette. I When I think of the competitors to
that car, I think of the BMW X five M
five that I just recently drove. The M five is fast,
(20:00):
and Tony will say, uh, yeah, the numbers are you know,
with with the automatic transmission and the hybrid system are
a little bit better, But you don't have the same
kind of engagement obviously that you have with a manual transmission,
which the Cadillac kept. And I'm willing to trade a
few tenths every day of the week for more engagement
(20:23):
with the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, I know that's true, and it's not a it's
not a knock on the GTS to say it's too
good like that. It's that's not a problem. It's just
an observation that for whatever reason, for what you're.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Right, No, I think it's a problem. I think it's
a problem.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Honestly, you think being too I don't think too good
is a problem.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
But you're saying that's not what I want in a vehicle, like, Okay,
it's an amazing car. Would I like to have the
nine to eleven career GTS? Yes I would. But so,
for example, the you're going to go to Portugal to
drive a new landin right. Yes, first of all, I'm jealous.
But a long time ago, I went to Spain to
(21:07):
drive the eventa door and it had this automatic transmission
with paddles that wasn't a dual clutch, and everybody said,
the car's great, but the transmission's horrible. You know. It
was like clunk, clunk, clunk, and it moved you in
your seat. I loved that. Yeah, I loved that. When
I'm driving the new Career GTS and I'm changing gears
(21:30):
of the paddle, I feel nothing. It doesn't move me
in my seat, it doesn't make a different sound. It's
just instantaneous and seamless. Yeah, that's what the engineer's shooting for,
but that's not what I'm going to pay one hundred
and ninety thousand dollars for.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
You know, Well, this is getting into the realm. Two
of It becomes a little tricky when an automaker starts
to make a lot of variants that are all really
good and there's kind of for edible. And I don't
want to say the GTS is forgettable, but in the
scheme of things it might be. I mean, I have
(22:06):
to keep telling myself, oh, yeah, that's the hybrid. Okay, yeah,
I got it, got it, got it. It's different than
the ST. And I know I always come back to
the ST, and you always come back to a T. Yes,
like we have our favorites and for some reason they
stick out in our memory, which is tough to do
when there are twenty plus variants of the nine to
eleven available.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You know why the Kara ta is probably my favorite
in the lineup? Why because I have never driven the ST.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
That that's going to change. We need to get this
to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well's one to have a friend who has one. I
do have a friend who has one, and he's offered
to let me drive his, and I'm going to take
him up on that. But there is one other point
with the T versus the ST that I've been thinking
about a lot more lately, and that is usable power.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
The the Kara Tea, I think it's a sweet spot.
It's like a little under four hundred horsepower, you know,
almost there. They did some lightweighting to it. It's got
the short throw shifter. It's so engaging, and I can
make it a ton of fun on the Bronx River Parkway.
I can take it to Bear Mountain and have an
(23:17):
amazing time ringing it out. You know, obviously I'm not
doing nine tenths, but I'm you know, I'm revving it
up and in the ST I don't I would love
to hear your take, but I know Magnus told me
driving down Angeli's Crest like it's just so fast you
can't get there on a US road.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I'm thinking, did I don't know if Magnus was talking
about the ST because we haven't had that in the crest.
Did he tell you?
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Maybe he was?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Maybe I'm mistaken, But what do you think about that?
I mean, the idea is that these cars are too
fast to really have fun unless you're on a track.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Okay, I had the ST up in like Napa Valley
close to San Francisco, winding around up there, both on
very curvy roads and on some open highway and in general,
I'm not a professional driver, so I'm not getting one
hundred percent out of any car. That's that's the truth.
I am not Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pears from F
(24:17):
one driving.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm not a good driver.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The thing about the ST is it made me feel
like I was. It made me feel like I was
an exceptional driver, and it made me feel like I
was ringing it out and it was so fun. It
did make me feel like I was getting all of
the car. I know I wasn't, but I felt like
I was. I. Yes, that's different than something like, you know,
(24:45):
some of the upper level Ferraris or Lamborghinis or anything
else you might want to throw in there that Yeah,
I know I'm not getting. I'm getting like half of
what the car's offering, you know. So I would say
I I felt like I got all of the s
I got what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
That's what you want, that's what you want.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I know I didn't, but it
made me feel like I was. It's it's great you
got to drive it.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I would love to drive it. I want to get
to Tony Roma because I did spend last week driving
in the CT five V Black Wing, and I feel
a little bit guilty about being so effusive about how
much I loved it.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And so why do you feel guilty in that?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I don't. I don't know, because I want to be
more skeptical and you're so good at that and become
skeptical and the end, you know, when I'm talking to him,
I'm just like fanboy. I can't believe I'm finally getting
to drive this car that I've been reading about and
lusting after for so long, and it was a truly
(25:52):
amazing experience. I was trying to think of negatives before
we go into the interview that I could point out.
I really can't. The one thing I get stuck on
is he talks about the precision, and this car did
have the extra twenty thousand dollars precision package, and to me,
the exciting thing about it is that it didn't have
(26:13):
the precision of the M five. You know, it gets
a little bit squirrely when you try and put down
all the power to the two rear wheels, right, but
a little bit yeah, I mean it's a conversation. I
will say again that I'm not a very good driver,
so for me, yes.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Most people are. Most people aren't good.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And I loved that, like I get a little bit
scared when I was really pushing it in this.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Car, making you work a little bit exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yes, that that was just the most fun. The other well,
there wasn't really anything else I didn't love about it,
except for when you're changing lanes and you put on
a turn signal, it has the yellow thing in the mirror,
you know that shows a blinking turn signal. I like that,
but the problem is if there's a car in your
(27:00):
blind spot, it puts up another yellow sign right next
to the yellow thing that shows your turn signals on.
And I found it hard to differentiate between the two
exact same color yellow lights. So every time I'm changing lanes.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
It freaks you out.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, always to hit is something in my blind spot
because it's yellow.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And yeah, this seems to be a thing with GM,
because this week I've got the Optic, the Cadillac Optic,
and it has the same issue. And it's interesting that
you point that out because I've noticed it, but I
haven't really articulated it to myself. But you're right. It
is a little bit disconcerting because it's exactly like you say,
you could be making a completely fine pass or just
(27:42):
laane change, but it makes you think you're about to
hit someone that's in your blind spot, when that may
not be the case, or it might.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Be right exactly. So every time I was a little
bit hesitant, Yes, and that does take the fun out
of it.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I did find myself physically turning my head and looking
over my shoulder, you know, old school, to make sure
there was nobody back there. Because I started to not
trust the little indicator because it's like the Boy who
Cried Wolf. There were so many times that it was yellow.
I just stopped trusting it and physically looking, which you
should probably do anyway you should. But but the thing is,
(28:18):
if you're already tracking who's on the road in your
side mirrors, in your rear view mirror, you have a
pretty good idea of who's there.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Trust at the time.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Well, with that out of the way, let's get to
our interview with General Motors Engineer Corvette Boss Tony Roma. Tony,
I am just moved by this Cadillac CT five V
black Wing. I mean, it's it's a visceral experience in
(28:50):
a in a very different way than like a BMW
M five for a sedan. It's just amazing. And the
fact that you've been able to keep a manual transmission
in this car. I believe it's the only V eight
sedan in the world with a manual transmission. I think
it's the fastest car in the world that has a
manual transmission. How is it? How is it possible? How
(29:14):
did you do it?
Speaker 7 (29:14):
Yeah? Boy, I appreciate all the accolades. That's the way
we talk about the car. So it's good that you
are picking up on what we're doing. I'd say a
long time ago we stopped, to be honest, benchmarking a
lot of our competitors. It was really when we started
on the CT five, during the generation where we had
the last gen of the CTSV out, everybody was going all, well, drive,
(29:37):
they were making their cars a little bigger, a little heavier,
and we really said, hey, that's not the character we want.
We want that precise, nimble, more driver engaged feel, and
the manual trends is such a big part of that.
Even though it doesn't make the car absolutely faster, as
you know, there's just no replacement for that connection that
(29:58):
the your whole body and to drive the car. So
it's really we are building cars that we want to drive.
And I think, you know, you kind of reference that
a lot of our competitors have gone away and they
build certainly super fast cars, but I prefer what we drive,
and I think it really is more comparable to maybe
a couple of generations ago from some of our competitors, So.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
What's the waiting list, Like, I mean, are you seeing
high demand?
Speaker 7 (30:25):
We see very high demand, and we especially see demand
for the higher optioned cars. The cars are coming in
very very well equipped. Pretty much if you want one,
you can get one. We've got We sell out very
quickly with our special additions. Last year we did a
special addition that had like blue carbon and was gorgeous
and we use this really cool metal forming technology to
(30:45):
put a graphic in the door, really really making a
special piece. We made a run last year and we're
getting ready to potentially do it again where we let
you choose the color of your car and customize a
couple of things in the interior. Our customers just eating
that up. So really it's a paradigm shift for us.
How high up the price ladder our customers really want
(31:09):
to go in. Like the third gen Rain, it was
a little more budget minded. Now everybody wants every car
dripping with carbon and just completely decked out, which is awesome,
and we want to build them that way. So but
if you really wanted to set five, you can. You
could probably find one out there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And now you have the one. I'm driving now has
this Precision package. So I think it's an eighteen thousand
dollars option which changes the suspension dials. It in more
for I supposed track use, but I'm using it on
you know, the bronx Ord Parkway, and you've got the
car carbon ceramic brakes, which are incredible. I don't know
if it's necessary for a street car, but how do
(31:49):
you think about the evolution of this You know, was
once less than one hundred thousand dollars, now it's one
twenty with that package, and it climbs.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Well, that's a great example of what I just talked about,
how the appetite for our customers for more. You know,
those were things in the tuning and the cup tires.
We're all part of the g Is that really what
our customers want? And can we demand that much price?
And it's been a resounding yes, And that really the
whole project. The Precision package came from the idea that
(32:21):
we love the precision of the CT four, but we
love the isolation from the CT five Black Wing, and
you know, kind of internally we always said, boy, wouldn't
it be cool if we can make a CT five
Black Wing as precise and nimble as the CT four
Black Wing. So we set our super talented vehicle integration
and vehicle dynamics crew to work, and they rose to
(32:43):
the challenge. I think you would agree pretty well. The
car is amazing. It's so sharp, it's so precise, it
doesn't beat you up. It's it's incredible, and yes it's
kind of overkill on the street, but some people like overkill.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I mean, I have to say what you want Tony
to me, it's of course it's blisteringly fast and you
put it wherever you want it, but it also has
there's a little bit of pucker factor, you know, like
there's just because it's rear wheel drive and it's throwing
almost seven hundred horsepower those wheels. You have to be
(33:16):
paying attention to drive this car. It's not something that
you necessarily want to put on autopilot, although you do
have like an autopilot function available, And that's what makes
me really fall in love with it. And it's become
not just the I mean, the interior is amazing to me.
It's so elegant. There's nothing more than what you need,
(33:37):
but everything that you do need. And now I'm starting
to fall in love with the design, which I hadn't
been convinced on before. Like the exterior now is starting
to get me. I sit in my driveway and just
look at it. So I think you've just nailed it
on every conceivable level with that car. And I'm just
surprised that more people don't talk about it, and that
(33:57):
you don't have like years long waiting lists. And there
is there some kind of cap on the production because
of the emissions. It's a super charge six point two
liters v eight right.
Speaker 7 (34:10):
Yeah, without going too deep in the weeds, you know,
we would be capped if we really tried to make
kind of as many as we wanted, But we're running
at about what we think customer demand is. I wouldn't
say that we're artificially lowering things very much, but we
would if we got a huge surgeon demand, you know,
five times as many people walked in and wanted them,
we'd have to start making decisions on portfolio level. But
(34:34):
that's not where we're at right now. And everything you
said about the car is just spot on. It's that
bi modal character the car has. It's comfortable and quiet
when you want to use supercrews and just just go
to work and just chill, and then as soon as
you're on some kind of road that can take it
and you want to twist a little bit or put
that power down. It does it with confidence. But I
(34:55):
agree with your comment. It's not the kind of car
you just mail it in and just get ham fisted
stand on it. It's and that's that's part of it.
That's part of what we like about it. It's a
it's a driver's car, Tony.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I have to ask, if you know, we're talking about
how amazing this black Wing is take rate as fifty
to fifty manual, which is like wildly high, why can't
put a manual in a Corvette? I mean, if it's
that popular and that great, why not just transition it
(35:27):
over into the real beauty of the lineup?
Speaker 7 (35:32):
Yeah that I've obviously gotten that question before, and so
did tedg and Josh Holder before me.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
We asked Mark Royales version.
Speaker 7 (35:40):
Yeah, okay, Mark, Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people
get this question, and so I'll give you my version
of the answer. As you guys both know that we
work in a very capital intensive industry, and you know
when you work on these rearbeel drive cars, or even
when we had the transmission in the rear like C seven.
We've got that tremic, beautiful tremic to sixty sixty transmission
(36:01):
that's been around for a long time and slowly developed
into the beautiful thing that it is. There's no way
to adapt anything like that to the back of a
C eight. The dimensions of that car are very much
set up by the rear face of case to the
half shaft dimension of our DCT. And I mean making
a brand new you we'd have to make a brand
(36:23):
new transmission from scratch, and that would easily be one
hundred million dollar project. And everybody says they want the
manual transmission, and yes, it's fifty to fifty penetration on
a you know, two thousand a year CT five black Wing,
but it wouldn't be anywhere near fifty percent on a
forty thousand a year of Corvette. And the business case
just frankly doesn't make sense. So the team decided on
(36:45):
the right path and we made a fantastic dual clutch
transmission that tames, you know, the beast of one thousand
and sixty four horse power, and I'm proud of it,
and I think we made the right choice, and so
I am a card carrying manual trans Driver's painful for
me to give you this answer, just like it's painful
for you to hear. But that's that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
It's actually to me, it's not as bad. And that's
weird because I'm also such a purist normally in terms
of I want a manual transmission. I want to be
I want to be really involved in driving the car,
but for some reason I don't need it in the Corvette.
I have a blast in the Stingray. I love the
(37:26):
E Ray especially for some reason. The Z six is
like mind blowing just the engine alone. I haven't driven
the z R one, but obviously it's gonna be a
cruise missile we need to. But the thing is, what
is your favorite of the Corvettes, because you have those
four different offerings now, And also I wonder what is
(37:50):
your take, as I guess sort of an automotive purist
as well, on the E Ray because I think it's
the most underrated of them and it's just so cool
to feel that acceleration with the electric motor on the
front axle.
Speaker 7 (38:07):
Yeah, there's like three solid questions in there, so answer right,
So that's okay, No, no, I'll give you the patent
answer that my mentor, John Heinerzy always used to say
his favorite Corvette is the next one he's working on.
So that's that's sort of where my head is, you know,
that's my politically correct answer.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Wait, what is the next one you're working on?
Speaker 7 (38:27):
Uh huh yeah, we'll talk about that Sunday, I promise.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
So.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (38:33):
My My answer is I think the Z six is
the spiritual center of the Corvette portfolio. That is the
most here essence of Corvette. The Z one is just fantastic.
It's it's so so fast, and now the zero one
acts that folks haven't really had a chance as sample
does things that just it takes everything you love about
(38:56):
the era, all the things you were talking about about
the E ray, which to that point point I agree,
is kind of like the best kept secret in the
auto industry right now, that the eray. We talk to
a lot of folks that are sort of negative on
all this electrification stuff, and we have to convince them.
I don't know, I promise we didn't. It's not gimmicky.
We didn't just do this to do it, go drive
it it's fantastic, and then they usually come back and go,
(39:16):
oh my god, it's great. So I love the way
we used electrification on the Eray and now on the
zero one X, and I think when you guys get
a chance to sample that, it's so fast, it's just incredible.
But to me, this is I'm going to go out
and enjoy driving the car abscribe. Sorry memory, I'm.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Just going to say.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
This is VR one. It's like over a thousand horsepower,
more than eight hundred pounds of torque, just for our listeners.
Speaker 7 (39:43):
So yeah, the Zerru is the top zero is one thousand,
sixty four horse power, Yeah, exactly. And then and then
the zero one X is the one we just introduced.
It's twelve hundred and fifty horse power. We upgraded the RES,
the state of charge on the RES and the front
axle to get a little more than the rated power
on the e Ray. So everybody was expecting the straight
(40:04):
math edition of the Eray front axle with twenty sixty four,
and we kind of delayed and surprised and overachieved a
little bit. So twelve hundred and fifty horsepower with all
that front grip, it's just incredible. I mean, it's under
nine seconds in the quarter mile in a street legal
car with a warranty is something honestly never thought I'd
see in my lifetime. It's mind bending, it's I mean,
(40:25):
we had to get special permission to go to a
drag strip to certify the numbers, to run at a
trick strip. We had to get a special insurance writer
and other stuff. So just to do it, because none
of our customers are gonna be able to do it
anything over one hundred and fifty miles an hour. Everybody's
insurance will required you to have a parachute and all
that other stuff. So it's pretty nuts, Tony.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
What's it like to be a part of building that
kind of beast? You know? I always think of the
people that build these these iconic vehicles, right, It's it's
like the guy who was the architect on the Empire
State Building, except for you have to go and visit that,
and this can drive around. You could see it roll
(41:04):
by you. How amazing is it to be a part
of this whole this whole thing.
Speaker 7 (41:13):
Yeah, it's just it's amazing amazing.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
How did you get here? Maybe is a better question, Tony?
What did you do? Like, where did you go to school?
What cars are you like when you were a kid,
What drove you to this place?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (41:26):
Okay, sure, I can give you the quick version of this.
So I fell in love with cars a long, long
time ago. Everybody's got a quick Corvette story. Mine was
my uncle's nineteen seventy one big block convertible used to
cruise around over by Jamestown, New York. You know, rural
back roads, and the sound of a big block with
the top down is just you know, if that doesn't
fuel your soul, you're in the wrong business, right. I
(41:47):
went to engineering school in Detroit at Lawrence Tech, got
a master's degree Purdue. I started basically on the Corvette
group at at GM, working on automatic transmissions back in
nineteen ninety three, and over time worked my way into
engine development and then got some advice from my mentors
to say, look, you need to go round out your
background if you want to come back and be a
(42:08):
part of the leadership team on Corvette. And so that's
what I did. I jumped over when a great opportune
time when we started on V series to tie these
two discussions together. So I worked on the first generation
CTSV I worked on it before we called it V.
We didn't know what we were going to call it.
We just knew we were doing a hot rid version
of the first end CTS. And I worked with the
(42:29):
race team back then because we raced the car that
we were making as we were developing it. And yeah,
through a couple of other moves, I got promoted to
be the chief on Alpha, which is the architecture of
the CT five and CT four come off of. That
was a little over ten years ago, and then just
last year when Tad's retired, through an interview process, I
(42:50):
kind of won the lottery and I get to come
home and like you said, I look at it exactly
like you said it, Like, how fortunate am I to
be part of this team that makes the mind bending cars?
And it's truly the a team, not just a GM,
but in the industry. If you look at all of
our development engineers, the vehicle architects, the safety folks, just everybody,
the folks in Bowling Green to build the car, we
(43:12):
work with the best people around and their attitude is,
you know, how can we do this? And that's what
it takes to make cars like this.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
It's awesome By the way, did you So? There's a
movie by Dak Shepherd that I always reference called Hit
and Run. Bradley Cooper's in it as well. He drives
a CTSV. There's a I think the bad guy has
a C six Corvette. There's like a Pontiac in it
as well. Did you work with those guys to make
(43:40):
that happen? I always wonder how you know car makers
get their vehicles in productions, and this one seems particularly
GM heavy.
Speaker 7 (43:51):
Yeah, I didn't back then. That's a good question. We
have a group of folks that work with producers and
folks in the movie industry, and our marketing team kind
of decides where would be good product placements, and so
sometimes we do get the call, Hey, they want a
car to do X, Y or Z. But in that
case I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
All right, one more on. I just have one more
in Corvette because I know you want to get to
Celestique and we don't have a ton of time. But
I have a buddy Tony who has C six and
he has a black Wing and the family car is
like a Tahoe. He desperately wants a Corvette SUV. Can
(44:29):
you give us any news on the potential of that.
And I also said, like, wouldn't that just be a
rebodied Acadia and he was like, no, they're going to
do something completely different. It's going to be totally Corvette.
Speaker 7 (44:39):
I'm not going to give you any news. My answer
will disappoint you wholeheartedly, but I will tell you we
continue to look at the market and opportunities white space
on the board, if you will, Where could we place
a product that wouldn't cannibalize other things in our portfolio
And if we can do a vehicle that would have
the right credibility to put some cross flow on it,
(45:01):
and and the time is right, we we I would
never say never, but right now, never, not not now?
How about that?
Speaker 1 (45:09):
That's good, that's I mean, it's a bummer. Yeah, yeah, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Do want to ask about Celastic because obviously this whole conversation,
we've spoken about cars that are really known for, you know,
engaging driving, and Celastic is a completely different animal.
Speaker 7 (45:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
When you and I spoke, and I don't know if
I told you this at the time, but I thought
it drove amazing, especially considering its weight and dimensions.
Speaker 7 (45:38):
It's length, especially.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Can you just tell us what it was like to
go from developing these very you know, driver centric cars
to a luxury EV that I don't want to say
it's not driver centric because I actually thought it drove great,
but it's a different animal.
Speaker 7 (45:59):
Yeah, I mean your I appreciate your comments. That's what
we were going for. We want a car that is surprising.
And I was explaining to another journalist, we want a
car that's good at everything you ask it to do.
So if you want a cruise to work and just
be quiet, it's an EV it's going to be quiet.
Turn on the Dolby utmost chill, maybe do a phone call, whatever.
All the road noise cancelation, all the insulated glass, all
(46:22):
that stuff kind of shines. Like we sent you folks
on that ride, you know, if you want to go.
And I remember talking to you, You're like, I just
drove Angela's Crest like two days ago in a portie.
You sure you want me to do this? And I
said yes, I'm sure, and you're going to shave you
the side look like okay, And you came back and said, wow,
that was kind of cool, And that's exactly what Yeah,
(46:44):
that's exactly what we're looking for it, and I look,
Selastick's never going to be your first choice to go
drive a road like that on a beautiful Saturday day,
but you know it'll do it. And that was part
of the mission statement from the beginning. It had to
kind of do everything well and have that bimodal character,
and the technology that we chose really just enabled all
of that. The active role, control of the rear steer,
(47:05):
the Mr Dampers, air springs, all of that kind of
comes together to make that car drive so much lighter
and more nimble and athletic than you would ever dream
that a car that big and those proportions. But I
think that's part of to me what makes the Celestic
special is because when you look at the car with
how low and how crazy the proportions are, man, you
kind of wish that it would back that up, and
(47:27):
then it does and you go, wow, Okay, it's not
just a pretty face. It's it's got some moves. And
at the very beginning of Celestic, the discussion with Mark
Royce was essentially, hey, we don't want a gimmicky EV
at the top of the lineup. We want a great
car that happens to be propelled by electricity, and so
(47:47):
that was our that was our guiding light and I
think I think we did it. And so it's a
beautiful car that happens to be an EV that drives fantastic.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
What was the biggest fight you had with the design
because I always since that the engineers and the designers.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Have a special relationship.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Can you give us some insight about about what you
bought over?
Speaker 7 (48:13):
Yeah, Celestic is unique in anybody's career in the industry
that the designers really from minute one, the goal was
make the show card, and we talked about that with
you guys at the press show. And so we started
with a sketch that represented the design language and the proportions.
We scaled it up to be big enough to fit people.
(48:35):
We built a show card that was basically the design
folks telling us what they wanted with very loose kind
of guidelines. They I'll use the word cheated. They cheated
up a couple of the you know guidelines. And then
the answer was, okay, how can we do that? And
so that was our challenge and really, I'll tell you
we had a lot of really passionate discussion and Celestic,
(48:56):
I'm not gonna lie both sides. Most of it, honestly
was is we just can't do that. It wasn't. We
don't want to do that, we can't afford to do that.
We'd rather not do that. It wasn't. You know, So
that makes Celestic a little different most programs you work on.
It's well, yeah, I know the blah blah blah, really
expensive car does this crazy little thing here, but there's
(49:18):
no way we can afford that. Look at how much
it costs. On Celestic. It was like, Okay, we'll go
find out what those people are doing and call the suppliers.
And we reached out to everybody all over the world
and came up with I think it's somewhere in the
neighborhood of two hundred patents on our own. Some of
the stuff we loaned our intellectual property to others to
make the actual parts. Some of the software and things
(49:39):
we did ourselves. So I don't I can't remember any
big like, oh my gosh. You know, that argument was
defining for the car, But there was certainly a lot
of passion on both sides, and I think you saw
the relationship that Aaron and Michael Simco and I still
have to this day, and I honestly feel that that's
a testament to as a team. You know, the fact
that we still go and hang out and you know,
(50:00):
have drink and enjoy what we created together. I think
it speaks volumes and that's not just me, it's the
whole engineering team. But I'm the one there at the
press show.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Right, Tony, So much gratitude from my side for your time.
I really appreciate you making this work because I know
you're traveling, you're busy, You've got a lot going on,
So thank you.
Speaker 7 (50:23):
Okay, no problem, good talking to you.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
I can't believe Corvette there's not going to be a
Corvette SUV like anytime soon. I find Well, this was
something they were working on.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
And like you, you've been talking about it and sort
of asking about it for a long time because it's
been in the ether.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, well I was. I'm kind of I obviously have
a crush on, you know, the black Wing and the Corvettes,
and I just feel like General Motors is doing everything
right and I was excited to have a Corvette like Cayenne,
you know, because it's been such a huge money spinner
(51:02):
for Portia.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I know, I mean, the thing that I always sort
of gave me pause though, was what Ford did with Mustang.
How they turn that into.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
But that's not even an SUV. That's like a little
hatchback the Mustard that isn't what the e the mock
e Mustang.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, that's not a little hatchback. That is that is
an su that is not small. I was following one
the other.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Day and well, when I sit in one with my
six three, two hundred and ten pound frame, it does
not feel like a big SUV.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
It's a small it's a compact SUI. Yeah, all that
to say, I don't think it looks good. I don't
think it's interesting. So why would you ruin the Mustang name? Yeah,
I'm slapping it on that.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
I tend to agree with you. Although Jim Farley when
he was talking with Jay Leno, well, I guess Jay
Leno when he was talking with Jim Farley was defending it,
saying that they make the mock e so that they
can still put a stick shift in a Mustang with
a V eight.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Sure, but then why not make it good. That's gonna
make it.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe they'll come out with
another one. Like two point zero version. That's better.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
We've heard this from We've heard this from portion other
automakers we make X, so we can give you why.
You know, this is a common.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Thing, but some people love it. Matt Farah had a
macke for like three years and loved it. Right or
is he paid to say that?
Speaker 2 (52:31):
You'll have to ask Matt.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I don't know. Yeah, we should. I would love to
have Matt on here, and he would just have them on.
He would have to keep the profanity to a minimum.
Speaker 6 (52:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Right, Well, I'm gonna go see this movie right now, Hannah.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
I can't wait to hear what you think.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
And I appreciate you. Likewise, We've done a lot of
really great work together lately. I know.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
I'm so proud of it, and it's been honestly a
true joy.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
It has been. Thank you so much, and thank you
to everyone who listens. If you want to write in
a mail addresses hot Pursuit at Bloomberg dot net. I'm
Matt Miller and
Speaker 2 (53:04):
I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Matt Miller and I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is
Hot Pursuit.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
All right, we have a double feature for you.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Is there first?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I think it is kind of like last week we
had our Toto Wolf podcast and then the bonus episode.
I don't know if you noticed that we put out
a bonus episode on our trip to France for the
twenty four hours of Lamont. Yes, this week, I didn't
know that. Yeah, we did see. I knew you wouldn't.
That's why I said I knew I wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I was thinking, do I tell him I don't actually
know that we've done that.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I knew it, so I think a lot of our
listeners might have missed it too. But yes, so we
put out a TV special. It's also on YouTube. It's
on Bloomberg dot Com, but it's on wherever you get
your podcasts as well. You can just listen to it today.
We have two pretty incredible guests. One is the producer
(01:05):
of Top Gun as well.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
That you're your go to for Bruckheimer. Is that your instant?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I think it's his famous as of thunder.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And not Gone in sixty seconds.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I mean Armageddon. Armageddon is probably my favorite movie that
he's done.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's unbelievable, yealy thing that he's been a part of.
And he's eighty one and he is sharp. Yes, oh my,
he is dialed in. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, he's pretty cool. So you and I got to
sit down with him on his satellite media tour, so
not with him, but on the same kind of radio
waves and talk about his new movie, F One, the movie.
We actually just sat down with Total Wolf for an
hour as well for our podcast, and he gives you
(01:55):
sends you his best and said he's really impressed by
the realism of the film. Tell us how important that
was to you to get it right from you know,
from a realism aspect.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, it's really important. I mean, we did it with
Top Gun Maverick. We want to do it again with
F one. Took It was a four year process to
get this thing off the ground and in the right way.
It took almost a year to make F one comfortable
with what we were doing. That was really part of
our journey to make sure that Stefano. What happened is
(02:28):
Brad myself and Joe Kozinski, who directed the movie, flew
to London and sat down with Stefano and said, here's
the movie we want to make. We want to make
sure that they actually drive the cars, our actors, and
how do we get this done. Fortunately, we had Lewis Hamilton,
who's a partner. He was terrific. He's one of the
producers on the movie. He made sure that we got
(02:50):
it right. But that creates a problem because you have
Lewis Hamilton, who's at the time in Mercedes and they
have this huge rivalry were with Red Bull, so Red
Bull for sure was going to be the villain in
their minds. So it took us almost a year to
get all these teams comfortable and drivers comfortable that we're
going to tell a story about our two drivers and
f one which has ten teams two drivers to each team.
(03:11):
But it's the only sport in the world where your
teammate is also your competitor, so everybody wants to be
the number one driver. So how do we navigate this
with all these teams and make sure the FIA is comfortable.
And it took us a year, but we got there,
and we got unprecedented access access to the tracks, to.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
The drivers, we interviewed everybody. Everything.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I don't know if you've seen the movie, but everything
you see in the movie is accurate, happened at one
time during F one over the last seventy five years.
Some of the things the antics that the drivers have pulled,
but the fact that Brad and Damson took four months
off to get in these cars, and we start them
in a road car, put them in an F four car,
put them in a F three car, and finally got
(03:52):
them into our car, which was built and created by Mercedes.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
As I said earlier.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Jerry, we've seen Formula one really grow in popularity in
the US, especially in the last few years. What about
motorsport is so compelling to you personally but also to viewers.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, I grew up in Detroit, so that's motor city.
So right away I'm interested in cars to be in with.
It's ingrained in my DNA, but that sport is And
I really didn't know much about F one until I
saw Drive to Survive. And it was really Joe Kozinski
who came up with the story and came to me
after we finished F one. He said, we should make
this movie about this extraordinary sport. So I think that.
(04:35):
As I said, the first call we really made was
to Lewis and say, come on in and brother. One
of the prerequisites for the story to get Brad involved,
he said, I have to drive. I'm not going to
make a movie that's going to be greenstream, green screen
and process. So that's they took the energy in time
to spend four months driving these cars.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
How much of a problem was his age, you know,
because we're seeing these kids driving Formula one that are
I mean, Kenny's eighteen years old, right, so Brad Pitt
has to be at least as old as me as
in the second half of his century.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
How did you overcome that?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Take a look at him. He doesn't look like he
looks amazing. He takes care of himself. He worked out.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
When he wasn't on the track, he was in the
gym working out to make sure he could handle the
rigors of this sport. It's so difficult to drive these cars,
and you know they're in Singapore. It's over one hundred
degrees most of one hundred and twenty and those cars,
they are exhausted. So Brad and Damson trained off the
(05:39):
track and then they drove, so they were in really
good shape by the time when we started the movie,
so they could handle the brutality of what these cars
throw you through. You're going in five g's in some
of these corners, but you know, Toto and Christian, all
these these team principles really helped us fred Zach to
create a story that accurate, and we interviewed everybody. I
(06:03):
don't know if you've seen the movie, but this whole
thing with the socks where he has two Miss Max
socks that came from Williams who told us that one
of their drivers came to the track and had two
Miss Max socks and the first time he ever won
a race, so he did that. From there on, a
lot of them are superstitious. We use that in the movie.
This was a great experience for meeting because we're so lucky.
(06:26):
We get dropped into a world will never be a
part of and live that life in this instance for
four years, and that's what we do for an audience.
We drop you into a world which is F one,
which is really exciting, and make you feel what it's
really like to be an F one driver and be
part of an F one team, and that takes you
on a journey. This movie is so immersive between the
(06:48):
sound the visuals, but it's always about the emotion. It's
not about all the bells and whistles. And you don't
have to know anything about driving or know anything about
F one to really enjoy this movie. In fact, most
people will come into this film, especially from this country,
know very little about F one, but by the time
they leave, they're interested in the sport. They feel they've
(07:09):
had an amazing ride because we've transported them into another place,
another time, and they feel a part of that experience.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Jerry, Obviously, we've had some other great driving and racing
films in the past.
Speaker 6 (07:24):
Of course, Steve McQueen made one or two Ford Versus
Ferrari pretty popular. Were there films that you referred to
either as a do this or don't.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Do that when you were creating this film.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I think, you know, Joe and Brad and everybody looked
at all those movies and they learned from them. And
what's interesting is the technology that they had versus the
technology that we have is so different. I mean, our
cameras are a third the size of what we use
in Top Gun, and we had six of those in
the cockpit now it's even smaller. We had fifteen camera
(07:59):
positions on our car. You only could use four at
a time, and it was even harder for our guys
to drive than the real drivers because they had four
cameras staring at them all the time, so they had
to look around these cameras while they were driving the movie.
We also created a special type of camera that we
didn't have, a top gun, which is a remote control
(08:20):
camera which can pan and move as we're going one
hundred and eighty miles an hour, So we had to
build antennas are all around the track to be able
to use this remote camera. So that adds to the
excitement and the thrill of the movie. What we're trying
to do is be seamless, so you don't realize that
we're actually making the movie, that you're following the story,
you're excited by it, and you're in that F one
(08:42):
car with our characters.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Jerry, I have not gotten a chance to see it yet.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
When I do, want to make sure and see it
in a theater because I want that experience of the
big screen. I want the Dolby Atmos playing all around me.
How important is it to you that people see your
films in the theater as as opposed to on streaming
at home on a TV.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Look for this movie. You want to see it on
the biggest screen possible. You want to go to Imax.
You want to hear that Dobe sound that at most
it's just so experiential to be part of it.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
It's a thrill.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
If you want to go and have a thrill for
a night with your wife or your girlfriend or your friends,
this is the perfect outing. It's something that's a gives
you a lift, makes you feel good, takes you away
from the chaos in the world for over two hours.
And that's what we try to do. Let's forget about everything.
Let's forget about the world, and you get in Brad
Pitt's world and Damson's world and Javar by Damn and
(09:39):
Carrie Conyon, which is a fantastic cast. A lot of
Academy Awards in there and nominations in that group.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
So it's they're the best of the best.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And we had Aaron Kruger write the screenplay, who wrote
Top Gun Maverick, So you're gonna get the same kind
of thrills we gave you in that movie.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Jerry, I have to ask, since you've made this film,
are you now a fan a race fan? Are you
a formula fan? And who's your team and who's your driver?
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Well, obviously it has to be Lewis.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I mean, it can't be anybody else because he's a
great friend and a phenomenal driver. And Ferrari was terrific,
as was Toto in making this film. In fact, we
have Toto in the movie and Fred from Ferrari and
Zach are actually in the movie as a bunch of
other christian Is and they're all kind of have moments
(10:30):
in the film, as a lot of the drivers do too.
So that was fun just being in their world. And
I love it now. I followed every week.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
That was Jerry Brookheimer f one. The movie is one
that you have seen already, Hannah, And I'm going to
this afternoon to catch the matinee in the Imax.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'm so glad you're going to see it in the Imax.
I think that's the way to go. Yeah, you're gonna
be I want you to let me know what you
think of it. I hope you like it. I really
think you will.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I'm really pumped and I will say that so Jerry
Brookheimer's made all these incredible films. And obviously I love
Top Gun and Days of Thunder and Armageddon. I love
liv Tyler, but.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
We all do.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
But I don't love those movies that much. Right, What
I really love is Brad pitt movies. Like for me,
he is maybe because of my age, like I think
he might be my favorite Hollywood star.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Then I'm gonna have to say something that I've been
trying to hold back and not say, but I'm gonna
say it to you. I need you to look at
Brad's face in this film, and you'll have a lot
of opportunities to do so. And I want you to
tell me what you think he's done to his face.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Oh, you think he's had some work done.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I think there's some filler action and it's.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That's a huge bummer.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I know, I know. And I didn't want to talk
about this because it's maybe it's superficial or whatever, but
like male movie stars get better when they get older,
and I'm just so surprised. Yeah, he is not being
allowed to a.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well it's fair enough. Look, people talk about when women
get work done. Obviously we would talk about it if
he ruined his lips you know.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Or Nicole Kidman's whole journey. You know, we've talked about
that for years.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
But you're right, Yeah, dudes don't typically do that or
that we know of or that we talk about.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Right, I mean, it's subtle, but his face is different somehow,
and it's I just need you to look at it
and tell me, as a self professed Brad Pitt fan
that you just said because this is not there are
no cheekbones there. That's I just need you to tell
me that's a real bummer after you see it.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I mean, I don't love Brad Pitt because I'm in
love with Brad Pitt.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, well I didn't think you were.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I love his especially his like the bit roles he does,
like True Romance or burn after reading.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He's funny, Yeah, funny he is.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
He is very funny, and it's it catches you kind
of unaware because he looks like this sort of know
Thelma and Louise, Yes, handsome honk. That's kind of brainless,
you know, But no, he's but he actually has some
wit and intelligence that is disarming as well.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Anyway, Wait, I just I'm sorry, I have to keep
on this. What's your favorite Brad Pitt film because mine's
Fight Club.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I would say Fury probably, and I also love Inglorious
Bastard's Okay, but Fury, I tend. I tend to like
the sort of spy and war movies.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
And did you watch Wolves?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yes? Did not think it.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I didn't even finish it. No, And apparently this is
a F one tie in. Apparently Apple had considered putting
Wolves in theaters and decided not to because I didn't
want to risk a poor box office with that film,
which I thought was interesting. And of course Apple originals
created F one, the movie they did decide to put
(14:01):
in theaters. I just think that that whole thing is
very interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That is, I mean, I think Brad Pitt is one
of those like Tom Cruise, where I think he almost
hasn't done a bad movie. There are you could say
cool Runnings, you know, was not great, but Wolves wasn't good.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I didn't even know there was no there was not compelling.
I was shocked, complete sleeper.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
But you know, the main thing I love about Brad
Pitt probably isn't his movies, but his love of motorcycles
and you know, his extracurricular hobbies like that. So but
what do I know?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
I don't, you know plenty, I don't.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
What I do love and what I have been talking
about a lot lately is this Cadillac CT five V
Black Wing. I finally got to drive it. It's pretty
amazing and it's pretty shocking that nobody else, no other
automaker in the world, is a to produce a big
V eight in a four door sedan with a stick shift.
(15:06):
Only only General Motors can do this.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, and I couldn't believe that. Tony actually told us
how many they make and told us the take rate
on that stick shift and explained why they can't put
one in a Corvette.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, I mean he was.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
He was relatively forthcoming, I thought, actually true.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
So spoiler alert, we're going to talk to Tony Roma,
who made the CT five V Black Wing with the team.
I'm sure he would be quick to say he made
the Cadillac Celestique. Is that how you say it?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I say celestic? Yeah, you know, like stars celestic.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
But you, I guess, were there with him at the launch.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yes, yeah, nice guy.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
And now he's taken over from Tad Juchter as the
head of Corvette and he breaks some news with us
on Corvette too, which I think is the biggest headline.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
That's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So I'm driving this ram truck today. He just went
and picked it up in New Jersey and it's got
the Hurricane five to ten, which is an in line six,
and it's a fine motor. I guess. It's definitely putting
out better numbers, higher horsepower, more torque, it's turbocharged, but
(16:19):
it just doesn't feel as good to drive. And the
same thing happened when Ford replaced the six point two
liters V eight in the Raptor with a three and
a half liter turbocharged V six. Like it had higher
horse power, it fasters zero to sixty, you know, quicker acceleration,
but it just doesn't feel as rewarding.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
See I honestly, Matt, I don't get that, because, like,
if you're saying all of the numbers are improved, what
are you not getting other than some sort of just
X factor that's in your brain because you know the engine.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
No, it's it's not just that I know it like
subconsciously and hear it. I can feel it. Yeah, it
just it's not as doesn't have the kind of warmth
or fullness of a V eight.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Just but see, now we're getting not that I disagree,
I'm I'm just saying like, this is an interesting thing
because now we're getting into sort of qualitative assessments about
that car. You know, it's the difference between Yeah, all
the numbers are better, and all the numbers check out,
but somehow and then you start to sound a little
(17:32):
woo woo when you talk about it. But you're talking
about like warmth and all of these things that are
impossible to quantify, but they are real.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
You're right, No, you're right. There is one thing that
you could probably quantify, which is there's definitely a lag
both in the Eco Boost and in the Hurricane five
to ten. Now, maybe there's a lag in the V
eight that I just don't notice as much because it
(18:02):
instantly makes more sound and vibrations. But I I just
to me, it doesn't matter if it goes zero to
sixty in three and a half seconds or zero sixty
in four and a half seconds. And you know, at
some point the numbers get so high that it just, yeah,
(18:25):
isn't useful.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
This is what I struggle with when I'm reviewing cars,
because when you're writing things down and you're literally showing
the numbers, but then it says one thing, But then
when you get in the car and drive it, you
feel something different, as something that might imply numbers aren't everything.
It's hard to convince people because until you've driven it,
(18:49):
you know. It's like, for instance, with McLaren's. McLaren's are
kind of perfect cars on paper, yep, and you know
they're they're extreme. They're like the tech engineer type of
car that that that that type of brain loves. But
for whatever reason, I think McLaren has struggled creating a
visceral emotional connection to some of their cars. And I
(19:12):
don't know why, I'm not an engineer.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, I think it's even happening. So I drove the
Carrera GTS, you know, the new nine to eleven that
you drove last year in Spain. I find it's the hybrid, yes, so,
and it's so good, especially the transmission is so good
that you just don't feel anything. You know, of course
(19:37):
it's way faster or you know, we are gonna hear
from Tony Roma, who makes makes the CT five V
black Wing for Cadillac, or he did and now he's
at Corvette. I When I think of the competitors to
that car, I think of the BMW X five M
five that I just recently drove. The M five is fast,
(20:00):
and Tony will say, uh, yeah, the numbers are you know,
with with the automatic transmission and the hybrid system are
a little bit better, But you don't have the same
kind of engagement obviously that you have with a manual transmission,
which the Cadillac kept. And I'm willing to trade a
few tenths every day of the week for more engagement
(20:23):
with the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, I know that's true, and it's not a it's
not a knock on the GTS to say it's too
good like that. It's that's not a problem. It's just
an observation that for whatever reason, for what you're.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Right, No, I think it's a problem. I think it's
a problem.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Honestly, you think being too I don't think too good
is a problem.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
But you're saying that's not what I want in a vehicle, like, Okay,
it's an amazing car. Would I like to have the
nine to eleven career GTS? Yes I would. But so,
for example, the you're going to go to Portugal to
drive a new landin right. Yes, first of all, I'm jealous.
But a long time ago, I went to Spain to
(21:07):
drive the eventa door and it had this automatic transmission
with paddles that wasn't a dual clutch, and everybody said,
the car's great, but the transmission's horrible. You know. It
was like clunk, clunk, clunk, and it moved you in
your seat. I loved that. Yeah, I loved that. When
I'm driving the new Career GTS and I'm changing gears
(21:30):
of the paddle, I feel nothing. It doesn't move me
in my seat, it doesn't make a different sound. It's
just instantaneous and seamless. Yeah, that's what the engineer's shooting for,
but that's not what I'm going to pay one hundred
and ninety thousand dollars for.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
You know, Well, this is getting into the realm. Two
of It becomes a little tricky when an automaker starts
to make a lot of variants that are all really
good and there's kind of for edible. And I don't
want to say the GTS is forgettable, but in the
scheme of things it might be. I mean, I have
(22:06):
to keep telling myself, oh, yeah, that's the hybrid. Okay, yeah,
I got it, got it, got it. It's different than
the ST. And I know I always come back to
the ST, and you always come back to a T. Yes,
like we have our favorites and for some reason they
stick out in our memory, which is tough to do
when there are twenty plus variants of the nine to
eleven available.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You know why the Kara ta is probably my favorite
in the lineup? Why because I have never driven the ST.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
That that's going to change. We need to get this
to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Well's one to have a friend who has one. I
do have a friend who has one, and he's offered
to let me drive his, and I'm going to take
him up on that. But there is one other point
with the T versus the ST that I've been thinking
about a lot more lately, and that is usable power.
Speaker 7 (22:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
The the Kara Tea, I think it's a sweet spot.
It's like a little under four hundred horsepower, you know,
almost there. They did some lightweighting to it. It's got
the short throw shifter. It's so engaging, and I can
make it a ton of fun on the Bronx River Parkway.
I can take it to Bear Mountain and have an
(23:17):
amazing time ringing it out. You know, obviously I'm not
doing nine tenths, but I'm you know, I'm revving it
up and in the ST I don't I would love
to hear your take, but I know Magnus told me
driving down Angeli's Crest like it's just so fast you
can't get there on a US road.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I'm thinking, did I don't know if Magnus was talking
about the ST because we haven't had that in the crest.
Did he tell you?
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Maybe he was?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Maybe I'm mistaken, But what do you think about that?
I mean, the idea is that these cars are too
fast to really have fun unless you're on a track.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Okay, I had the ST up in like Napa Valley
close to San Francisco, winding around up there, both on
very curvy roads and on some open highway and in general,
I'm not a professional driver, so I'm not getting one
hundred percent out of any car. That's that's the truth.
I am not Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pears from F
(24:17):
one driving.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm not a good driver.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The thing about the ST is it made me feel
like I was. It made me feel like I was
an exceptional driver, and it made me feel like I
was ringing it out and it was so fun. It
did make me feel like I was getting all of
the car. I know I wasn't, but I felt like
I was. I. Yes, that's different than something like, you know,
(24:45):
some of the upper level Ferraris or Lamborghinis or anything
else you might want to throw in there that Yeah,
I know I'm not getting. I'm getting like half of
what the car's offering, you know. So I would say
I I felt like I got all of the s
I got what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
That's what you want, that's what you want.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I know I didn't, but it
made me feel like I was. It's it's great you
got to drive it.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I would love to drive it. I want to get
to Tony Roma because I did spend last week driving
in the CT five V Black Wing, and I feel
a little bit guilty about being so effusive about how
much I loved it.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And so why do you feel guilty in that?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I don't. I don't know, because I want to be
more skeptical and you're so good at that and become
skeptical and the end, you know, when I'm talking to him,
I'm just like fanboy. I can't believe I'm finally getting
to drive this car that I've been reading about and
lusting after for so long, and it was a truly
(25:52):
amazing experience. I was trying to think of negatives before
we go into the interview that I could point out.
I really can't. The one thing I get stuck on
is he talks about the precision, and this car did
have the extra twenty thousand dollars precision package, and to me,
the exciting thing about it is that it didn't have
(26:13):
the precision of the M five. You know, it gets
a little bit squirrely when you try and put down
all the power to the two rear wheels, right, but
a little bit yeah, I mean it's a conversation. I
will say again that I'm not a very good driver,
so for me, yes.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Most people are. Most people aren't good.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And I loved that, like I get a little bit
scared when I was really pushing it in this.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Car, making you work a little bit exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yes, that that was just the most fun. The other well,
there wasn't really anything else I didn't love about it,
except for when you're changing lanes and you put on
a turn signal, it has the yellow thing in the mirror,
you know that shows a blinking turn signal. I like that,
but the problem is if there's a car in your
(27:00):
blind spot, it puts up another yellow sign right next
to the yellow thing that shows your turn signals on.
And I found it hard to differentiate between the two
exact same color yellow lights. So every time I'm changing lanes.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
It freaks you out.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, always to hit is something in my blind spot
because it's yellow.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And yeah, this seems to be a thing with GM,
because this week I've got the Optic, the Cadillac Optic,
and it has the same issue. And it's interesting that
you point that out because I've noticed it, but I
haven't really articulated it to myself. But you're right. It
is a little bit disconcerting because it's exactly like you say,
you could be making a completely fine pass or just
(27:42):
laane change, but it makes you think you're about to
hit someone that's in your blind spot, when that may
not be the case, or it might.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Be right exactly. So every time I was a little
bit hesitant, Yes, and that does take the fun out
of it.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I did find myself physically turning my head and looking
over my shoulder, you know, old school, to make sure
there was nobody back there. Because I started to not
trust the little indicator because it's like the Boy who
Cried Wolf. There were so many times that it was yellow.
I just stopped trusting it and physically looking, which you
should probably do anyway you should. But but the thing is,
(28:18):
if you're already tracking who's on the road in your
side mirrors, in your rear view mirror, you have a
pretty good idea of who's there.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Trust at the time.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Well, with that out of the way, let's get to
our interview with General Motors Engineer Corvette Boss Tony Roma. Tony,
I am just moved by this Cadillac CT five V
black Wing. I mean, it's it's a visceral experience in
(28:50):
a in a very different way than like a BMW
M five for a sedan. It's just amazing. And the
fact that you've been able to keep a manual transmission
in this car. I believe it's the only V eight
sedan in the world with a manual transmission. I think
it's the fastest car in the world that has a
manual transmission. How is it? How is it possible? How
(29:14):
did you do it?
Speaker 7 (29:14):
Yeah? Boy, I appreciate all the accolades. That's the way
we talk about the car. So it's good that you
are picking up on what we're doing. I'd say a
long time ago we stopped, to be honest, benchmarking a
lot of our competitors. It was really when we started
on the CT five, during the generation where we had
the last gen of the CTSV out, everybody was going all, well, drive,
(29:37):
they were making their cars a little bigger, a little heavier,
and we really said, hey, that's not the character we want.
We want that precise, nimble, more driver engaged feel, and
the manual trends is such a big part of that.
Even though it doesn't make the car absolutely faster, as
you know, there's just no replacement for that connection that
(29:58):
the your whole body and to drive the car. So
it's really we are building cars that we want to drive.
And I think, you know, you kind of reference that
a lot of our competitors have gone away and they
build certainly super fast cars, but I prefer what we drive,
and I think it really is more comparable to maybe
a couple of generations ago from some of our competitors, So.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
What's the waiting list, Like, I mean, are you seeing
high demand?
Speaker 7 (30:25):
We see very high demand, and we especially see demand
for the higher optioned cars. The cars are coming in
very very well equipped. Pretty much if you want one,
you can get one. We've got We sell out very
quickly with our special additions. Last year we did a
special addition that had like blue carbon and was gorgeous
and we use this really cool metal forming technology to
(30:45):
put a graphic in the door, really really making a
special piece. We made a run last year and we're
getting ready to potentially do it again where we let
you choose the color of your car and customize a
couple of things in the interior. Our customers just eating
that up. So really it's a paradigm shift for us.
How high up the price ladder our customers really want
(31:09):
to go in. Like the third gen Rain, it was
a little more budget minded. Now everybody wants every car
dripping with carbon and just completely decked out, which is awesome,
and we want to build them that way. So but
if you really wanted to set five, you can. You
could probably find one out there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And now you have the one. I'm driving now has
this Precision package. So I think it's an eighteen thousand
dollars option which changes the suspension dials. It in more
for I supposed track use, but I'm using it on
you know, the bronx Ord Parkway, and you've got the
car carbon ceramic brakes, which are incredible. I don't know
if it's necessary for a street car, but how do
(31:49):
you think about the evolution of this You know, was
once less than one hundred thousand dollars, now it's one
twenty with that package, and it climbs.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Well, that's a great example of what I just talked about,
how the appetite for our customers for more. You know,
those were things in the tuning and the cup tires.
We're all part of the g Is that really what
our customers want? And can we demand that much price?
And it's been a resounding yes, And that really the
whole project. The Precision package came from the idea that
(32:21):
we love the precision of the CT four, but we
love the isolation from the CT five Black Wing, and
you know, kind of internally we always said, boy, wouldn't
it be cool if we can make a CT five
Black Wing as precise and nimble as the CT four
Black Wing. So we set our super talented vehicle integration
and vehicle dynamics crew to work, and they rose to
(32:43):
the challenge. I think you would agree pretty well. The
car is amazing. It's so sharp, it's so precise, it
doesn't beat you up. It's it's incredible, and yes it's
kind of overkill on the street, but some people like overkill.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I mean, I have to say what you want Tony
to me, it's of course it's blisteringly fast and you
put it wherever you want it, but it also has
there's a little bit of pucker factor, you know, like
there's just because it's rear wheel drive and it's throwing
almost seven hundred horsepower those wheels. You have to be
(33:16):
paying attention to drive this car. It's not something that
you necessarily want to put on autopilot, although you do
have like an autopilot function available, And that's what makes
me really fall in love with it. And it's become
not just the I mean, the interior is amazing to me.
It's so elegant. There's nothing more than what you need,
(33:37):
but everything that you do need. And now I'm starting
to fall in love with the design, which I hadn't
been convinced on before. Like the exterior now is starting
to get me. I sit in my driveway and just
look at it. So I think you've just nailed it
on every conceivable level with that car. And I'm just
surprised that more people don't talk about it, and that
(33:57):
you don't have like years long waiting lists. And there
is there some kind of cap on the production because
of the emissions. It's a super charge six point two
liters v eight right.
Speaker 7 (34:10):
Yeah, without going too deep in the weeds, you know,
we would be capped if we really tried to make
kind of as many as we wanted, But we're running
at about what we think customer demand is. I wouldn't
say that we're artificially lowering things very much, but we
would if we got a huge surgeon demand, you know,
five times as many people walked in and wanted them,
we'd have to start making decisions on portfolio level. But
(34:34):
that's not where we're at right now. And everything you
said about the car is just spot on. It's that
bi modal character the car has. It's comfortable and quiet
when you want to use supercrews and just just go
to work and just chill, and then as soon as
you're on some kind of road that can take it
and you want to twist a little bit or put
that power down. It does it with confidence. But I
(34:55):
agree with your comment. It's not the kind of car
you just mail it in and just get ham fisted
stand on it. It's and that's that's part of it.
That's part of what we like about it. It's a
it's a driver's car, Tony.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I have to ask, if you know, we're talking about
how amazing this black Wing is take rate as fifty
to fifty manual, which is like wildly high, why can't
put a manual in a Corvette? I mean, if it's
that popular and that great, why not just transition it
(35:27):
over into the real beauty of the lineup?
Speaker 7 (35:32):
Yeah that I've obviously gotten that question before, and so
did tedg and Josh Holder before me.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
We asked Mark Royales version.
Speaker 7 (35:40):
Yeah, okay, Mark, Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people
get this question, and so I'll give you my version
of the answer. As you guys both know that we
work in a very capital intensive industry, and you know
when you work on these rearbeel drive cars, or even
when we had the transmission in the rear like C seven.
We've got that tremic, beautiful tremic to sixty sixty transmission
(36:01):
that's been around for a long time and slowly developed
into the beautiful thing that it is. There's no way
to adapt anything like that to the back of a
C eight. The dimensions of that car are very much
set up by the rear face of case to the
half shaft dimension of our DCT. And I mean making
a brand new you we'd have to make a brand
(36:23):
new transmission from scratch, and that would easily be one
hundred million dollar project. And everybody says they want the
manual transmission, and yes, it's fifty to fifty penetration on
a you know, two thousand a year CT five black Wing,
but it wouldn't be anywhere near fifty percent on a
forty thousand a year of Corvette. And the business case
just frankly doesn't make sense. So the team decided on
(36:45):
the right path and we made a fantastic dual clutch
transmission that tames, you know, the beast of one thousand
and sixty four horse power, and I'm proud of it,
and I think we made the right choice, and so
I am a card carrying manual trans Driver's painful for
me to give you this answer, just like it's painful
for you to hear. But that's that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
It's actually to me, it's not as bad. And that's
weird because I'm also such a purist normally in terms
of I want a manual transmission. I want to be
I want to be really involved in driving the car,
but for some reason I don't need it in the Corvette.
I have a blast in the Stingray. I love the
(37:26):
E Ray especially for some reason. The Z six is
like mind blowing just the engine alone. I haven't driven
the z R one, but obviously it's gonna be a
cruise missile we need to. But the thing is, what
is your favorite of the Corvettes, because you have those
four different offerings now, And also I wonder what is
(37:50):
your take, as I guess sort of an automotive purist
as well, on the E Ray because I think it's
the most underrated of them and it's just so cool
to feel that acceleration with the electric motor on the
front axle.
Speaker 7 (38:07):
Yeah, there's like three solid questions in there, so answer right,
So that's okay, No, no, I'll give you the patent
answer that my mentor, John Heinerzy always used to say
his favorite Corvette is the next one he's working on.
So that's that's sort of where my head is, you know,
that's my politically correct answer.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Wait, what is the next one you're working on?
Speaker 7 (38:27):
Uh huh yeah, we'll talk about that Sunday, I promise.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
So.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (38:33):
My My answer is I think the Z six is
the spiritual center of the Corvette portfolio. That is the
most here essence of Corvette. The Z one is just fantastic.
It's it's so so fast, and now the zero one
acts that folks haven't really had a chance as sample
does things that just it takes everything you love about
(38:56):
the era, all the things you were talking about about
the E ray, which to that point point I agree,
is kind of like the best kept secret in the
auto industry right now, that the eray. We talk to
a lot of folks that are sort of negative on
all this electrification stuff, and we have to convince them.
I don't know, I promise we didn't. It's not gimmicky.
We didn't just do this to do it, go drive
it it's fantastic, and then they usually come back and go,
(39:16):
oh my god, it's great. So I love the way
we used electrification on the Eray and now on the
zero one X, and I think when you guys get
a chance to sample that, it's so fast, it's just incredible.
But to me, this is I'm going to go out
and enjoy driving the car abscribe. Sorry memory, I'm.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Just going to say.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
This is VR one. It's like over a thousand horsepower,
more than eight hundred pounds of torque, just for our listeners.
Speaker 7 (39:43):
So yeah, the Zerru is the top zero is one thousand,
sixty four horse power, Yeah, exactly. And then and then
the zero one X is the one we just introduced.
It's twelve hundred and fifty horse power. We upgraded the RES,
the state of charge on the RES and the front
axle to get a little more than the rated power
on the e Ray. So everybody was expecting the straight
(40:04):
math edition of the Eray front axle with twenty sixty four,
and we kind of delayed and surprised and overachieved a
little bit. So twelve hundred and fifty horsepower with all
that front grip, it's just incredible. I mean, it's under
nine seconds in the quarter mile in a street legal
car with a warranty is something honestly never thought I'd
see in my lifetime. It's mind bending, it's I mean,
(40:25):
we had to get special permission to go to a
drag strip to certify the numbers, to run at a
trick strip. We had to get a special insurance writer
and other stuff. So just to do it, because none
of our customers are gonna be able to do it
anything over one hundred and fifty miles an hour. Everybody's
insurance will required you to have a parachute and all
that other stuff. So it's pretty nuts, Tony.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
What's it like to be a part of building that
kind of beast? You know? I always think of the
people that build these these iconic vehicles, right, It's it's
like the guy who was the architect on the Empire
State Building, except for you have to go and visit that,
and this can drive around. You could see it roll
(41:04):
by you. How amazing is it to be a part
of this whole this whole thing.
Speaker 7 (41:13):
Yeah, it's just it's amazing amazing.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
How did you get here? Maybe is a better question, Tony?
What did you do? Like, where did you go to school?
What cars are you like when you were a kid,
What drove you to this place?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (41:26):
Okay, sure, I can give you the quick version of this.
So I fell in love with cars a long, long
time ago. Everybody's got a quick Corvette story. Mine was
my uncle's nineteen seventy one big block convertible used to
cruise around over by Jamestown, New York. You know, rural
back roads, and the sound of a big block with
the top down is just you know, if that doesn't
fuel your soul, you're in the wrong business, right. I
(41:47):
went to engineering school in Detroit at Lawrence Tech, got
a master's degree Purdue. I started basically on the Corvette
group at at GM, working on automatic transmissions back in
nineteen ninety three, and over time worked my way into
engine development and then got some advice from my mentors
to say, look, you need to go round out your
background if you want to come back and be a
(42:08):
part of the leadership team on Corvette. And so that's
what I did. I jumped over when a great opportune
time when we started on V series to tie these
two discussions together. So I worked on the first generation
CTSV I worked on it before we called it V.
We didn't know what we were going to call it.
We just knew we were doing a hot rid version
of the first end CTS. And I worked with the
(42:29):
race team back then because we raced the car that
we were making as we were developing it. And yeah,
through a couple of other moves, I got promoted to
be the chief on Alpha, which is the architecture of
the CT five and CT four come off of. That
was a little over ten years ago, and then just
last year when Tad's retired, through an interview process, I
(42:50):
kind of won the lottery and I get to come
home and like you said, I look at it exactly
like you said it, Like, how fortunate am I to
be part of this team that makes the mind bending cars?
And it's truly the a team, not just a GM,
but in the industry. If you look at all of
our development engineers, the vehicle architects, the safety folks, just everybody,
the folks in Bowling Green to build the car, we
(43:12):
work with the best people around and their attitude is,
you know, how can we do this? And that's what
it takes to make cars like this.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
It's awesome By the way, did you So? There's a
movie by Dak Shepherd that I always reference called Hit
and Run. Bradley Cooper's in it as well. He drives
a CTSV. There's a I think the bad guy has
a C six Corvette. There's like a Pontiac in it
as well. Did you work with those guys to make
(43:40):
that happen? I always wonder how you know car makers
get their vehicles in productions, and this one seems particularly
GM heavy.
Speaker 7 (43:51):
Yeah, I didn't back then. That's a good question. We
have a group of folks that work with producers and
folks in the movie industry, and our marketing team kind
of decides where would be good product placements, and so
sometimes we do get the call, Hey, they want a
car to do X, Y or Z. But in that
case I had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
All right, one more on. I just have one more
in Corvette because I know you want to get to
Celestique and we don't have a ton of time. But
I have a buddy Tony who has C six and
he has a black Wing and the family car is
like a Tahoe. He desperately wants a Corvette SUV. Can
(44:29):
you give us any news on the potential of that.
And I also said, like, wouldn't that just be a
rebodied Acadia and he was like, no, they're going to
do something completely different. It's going to be totally Corvette.
Speaker 7 (44:39):
I'm not going to give you any news. My answer
will disappoint you wholeheartedly, but I will tell you we
continue to look at the market and opportunities white space
on the board, if you will, Where could we place
a product that wouldn't cannibalize other things in our portfolio
And if we can do a vehicle that would have
the right credibility to put some cross flow on it,
(45:01):
and and the time is right, we we I would
never say never, but right now, never, not not now?
How about that?
Speaker 1 (45:09):
That's good, that's I mean, it's a bummer. Yeah, yeah, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Do want to ask about Celastic because obviously this whole conversation,
we've spoken about cars that are really known for, you know,
engaging driving, and Celastic is a completely different animal.
Speaker 7 (45:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
When you and I spoke, and I don't know if
I told you this at the time, but I thought
it drove amazing, especially considering its weight and dimensions.
Speaker 7 (45:38):
It's length, especially.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Can you just tell us what it was like to
go from developing these very you know, driver centric cars
to a luxury EV that I don't want to say
it's not driver centric because I actually thought it drove great,
but it's a different animal.
Speaker 7 (45:59):
Yeah, I mean your I appreciate your comments. That's what
we were going for. We want a car that is surprising.
And I was explaining to another journalist, we want a
car that's good at everything you ask it to do.
So if you want a cruise to work and just
be quiet, it's an EV it's going to be quiet.
Turn on the Dolby utmost chill, maybe do a phone call, whatever.
All the road noise cancelation, all the insulated glass, all
(46:22):
that stuff kind of shines. Like we sent you folks
on that ride, you know, if you want to go.
And I remember talking to you, You're like, I just
drove Angela's Crest like two days ago in a portie.
You sure you want me to do this? And I
said yes, I'm sure, and you're going to shave you
the side look like okay, And you came back and said, wow,
that was kind of cool, And that's exactly what Yeah,
(46:44):
that's exactly what we're looking for it, and I look,
Selastick's never going to be your first choice to go
drive a road like that on a beautiful Saturday day,
but you know it'll do it. And that was part
of the mission statement from the beginning. It had to
kind of do everything well and have that bimodal character,
and the technology that we chose really just enabled all
of that. The active role, control of the rear steer,
(47:05):
the Mr Dampers, air springs, all of that kind of
comes together to make that car drive so much lighter
and more nimble and athletic than you would ever dream
that a car that big and those proportions. But I
think that's part of to me what makes the Celestic
special is because when you look at the car with
how low and how crazy the proportions are, man, you
kind of wish that it would back that up, and
(47:27):
then it does and you go, wow, Okay, it's not
just a pretty face. It's it's got some moves. And
at the very beginning of Celestic, the discussion with Mark
Royce was essentially, hey, we don't want a gimmicky EV
at the top of the lineup. We want a great
car that happens to be propelled by electricity, and so
(47:47):
that was our that was our guiding light and I
think I think we did it. And so it's a
beautiful car that happens to be an EV that drives fantastic.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
What was the biggest fight you had with the design
because I always since that the engineers and the designers.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Have a special relationship.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Can you give us some insight about about what you
bought over?
Speaker 7 (48:13):
Yeah, Celestic is unique in anybody's career in the industry
that the designers really from minute one, the goal was
make the show card, and we talked about that with
you guys at the press show. And so we started
with a sketch that represented the design language and the proportions.
We scaled it up to be big enough to fit people.
(48:35):
We built a show card that was basically the design
folks telling us what they wanted with very loose kind
of guidelines. They I'll use the word cheated. They cheated
up a couple of the you know guidelines. And then
the answer was, okay, how can we do that? And
so that was our challenge and really, I'll tell you
we had a lot of really passionate discussion and Celestic,
(48:56):
I'm not gonna lie both sides. Most of it, honestly
was is we just can't do that. It wasn't. We
don't want to do that, we can't afford to do that.
We'd rather not do that. It wasn't. You know, So
that makes Celestic a little different most programs you work on.
It's well, yeah, I know the blah blah blah, really
expensive car does this crazy little thing here, but there's
(49:18):
no way we can afford that. Look at how much
it costs. On Celestic. It was like, Okay, we'll go
find out what those people are doing and call the suppliers.
And we reached out to everybody all over the world
and came up with I think it's somewhere in the
neighborhood of two hundred patents on our own. Some of
the stuff we loaned our intellectual property to others to
make the actual parts. Some of the software and things
(49:39):
we did ourselves. So I don't I can't remember any
big like, oh my gosh. You know, that argument was
defining for the car, But there was certainly a lot
of passion on both sides, and I think you saw
the relationship that Aaron and Michael Simco and I still
have to this day, and I honestly feel that that's
a testament to as a team. You know, the fact
that we still go and hang out and you know,
(50:00):
have drink and enjoy what we created together. I think
it speaks volumes and that's not just me, it's the
whole engineering team. But I'm the one there at the
press show.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Right, Tony, So much gratitude from my side for your time.
I really appreciate you making this work because I know
you're traveling, you're busy, You've got a lot going on,
So thank you.
Speaker 7 (50:23):
Okay, no problem, good talking to you.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
I can't believe Corvette there's not going to be a
Corvette SUV like anytime soon. I find Well, this was
something they were working on.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
And like you, you've been talking about it and sort
of asking about it for a long time because it's
been in the ether.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, well I was. I'm kind of I obviously have
a crush on, you know, the black Wing and the Corvettes,
and I just feel like General Motors is doing everything
right and I was excited to have a Corvette like Cayenne,
you know, because it's been such a huge money spinner
(51:02):
for Portia.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I know, I mean, the thing that I always sort
of gave me pause though, was what Ford did with Mustang.
How they turn that into.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
But that's not even an SUV. That's like a little
hatchback the Mustard that isn't what the e the mock
e Mustang.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah, that's not a little hatchback. That is that is
an su that is not small. I was following one
the other.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Day and well, when I sit in one with my
six three, two hundred and ten pound frame, it does
not feel like a big SUV.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
It's a small it's a compact SUI. Yeah, all that
to say, I don't think it looks good. I don't
think it's interesting. So why would you ruin the Mustang name? Yeah,
I'm slapping it on that.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
I tend to agree with you. Although Jim Farley when
he was talking with Jay Leno, well, I guess Jay
Leno when he was talking with Jim Farley was defending it,
saying that they make the mock e so that they
can still put a stick shift in a Mustang with
a V eight.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Sure, but then why not make it good. That's gonna
make it.
Speaker 1 (52:08):
Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe they'll come out with
another one. Like two point zero version. That's better.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
We've heard this from We've heard this from portion other
automakers we make X, so we can give you why.
You know, this is a common.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Thing, but some people love it. Matt Farah had a
macke for like three years and loved it. Right or
is he paid to say that?
Speaker 2 (52:31):
You'll have to ask Matt.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I don't know. Yeah, we should. I would love to
have Matt on here, and he would just have them on.
He would have to keep the profanity to a minimum.
Speaker 6 (52:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Right, Well, I'm gonna go see this movie right now, Hannah.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
I can't wait to hear what you think.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
And I appreciate you. Likewise, We've done a lot of
really great work together lately. I know.
Speaker 2 (52:51):
I'm so proud of it, and it's been honestly a
true joy.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
It has been. Thank you so much, and thank you
to everyone who listens. If you want to write in
a mail addresses hot Pursuit at Bloomberg dot net. I'm
Matt Miller and
Speaker 2 (53:04):
I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Bloomberg
Hosts And Creators
Hannah Elliott
Matt Miller
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