duPont REGISTRY Talks: Top 10 Luxury Cars Road Tested By Gabriel Vega

Explore the top 10 luxury cars tested by Gabriel Vega on duPont REGISTRY Talks. Dive into the finest in automotive design, performance, and exclusivity. Find out his #1 pick. Listen now!

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to DuPont Registry Talks,
a new podcast from the homeof driving luxury since 1985.
Hello everyone and welcome to thisepisode of DuPont Registry Talks.
I'm your host, Charles Bradley,
and joining me today is another eminentguest from our wonderful world of
luxury, exotic and classic cars.

(00:25):
I'm delighted to say todayI'm joined by Gabriel Vega,
who's our road tester here at DuPontRegistry. Welcome to the show, Gabe.
Thank you.
And Gabrielle's been writingabout the top 10 cars of
2024 that he's driven this year,so we're going to go through them.
But first of all, I just want toask you about your job. I mean,

(00:46):
what a cool job it is.
You get to drive cars aroundthe globe for DuPont Registry,
some of the coolest super carsand luxury cars in the world.
Just tell us what thatwhole lifestyle is like.
Is as glamorous as sounds?
I mean, I feel like that's

(01:06):
feel, it's pretty great.I'm not going to lie.
I love doing it. I think this year,
2024 was the year that DuPont Registrykind of went global because the reviews
started in 2021 and then it was at thevery beginning it was kind of like,
Hey, we're doing reviews now.People were like, who are you?

(01:27):
So first year one and two was kindof getting that rolling and then
attending events in the us but 24 was,
majority of the drives werein Europe. It was great.
We went all over France,
Italy did a stop inSpain. It's pretty great.
And also the caliber of cars reallykind of came up this year, picked it up.

(01:50):
So I think now we're at a pointwhere we're kind of just doing
the very top of theindustry, which is great.
And not to spoil it, but inthe top 10 list, there's,
let's see, 1, 2, 3 V, 12 cars. Wow. Yeah,
which is in today.

(02:13):
The internal combustion engine.
Still.
Lives, right?
Yeah.
How many cars did you actuallydrive do you think, last year?
Because we're looking at the cremede la creme today, aren't we?
Yeah, today we're lookingat 10, probably 60.
Wow.
Probably 60. I mean it depends.
So there's some that are presscars in LA and some are the

(02:37):
media drives around the,
and sometimes you go to a media driverwho'll drive more than one of the cars.
Here we drove the electricand the gas version.
Oh, I see.
Which is kind of a rare thing becauseusually they'll do one first and then a
year later the other. Butwe did them side by side,
so some drives are two in one,so it's say around 60 cars.

(02:57):
Cool. Well,
let's take a look at your top 10 carsof the year because we've got the up on
the screen and the studio here,
and I guess the first thing to ask ishow do you narrow it down to 10 cars from
the 60 you've driven? What'sthe criteria that use?
Okay,
so I feel like I need to givea disclaimer because there

(03:20):
are some cars that aremissing on this list.
Oh, I see a disclaimer.
Yes. I had to give a disclaimerbecause at the end of the day,
not all of the cars wereavailable to be driven either.
They either could be a schedulingthing, an availability thing,
and so there are certaincars that probably should have been on this list that

(03:41):
came out this year, but so it'skind of like if we don't test them,
they can't be ranked.
Can't give them.
Exactly. Okay. So that might explainwhy certain cars are just not on here,
but the criteria because we'renot doing any instrument testing,
kind of more sort of that sort oftraditional car magazine approach.

(04:01):
Really it's all about thesecars, especially at this level, at this price point,
they're built with aparticular, they're going,
they have very definedintention. For example,
a Rolls-Royce has a very specificthing that it's going for.
And so these cars are the best atachieving their specific thing.

(04:23):
So these are the cars that are,because the other thing is,
and I kind of mentionedthat in the article was
when you're covering cars,so we basically cover cars.
There's almost no cars thatwe've reviewed in the last year
under a hundred thousand dollars. That'sthe cutoff, simply just the audience.

(04:44):
Anyway.
We know our audience.
And so past a hundred thousand dollars,
there aren't necessarily bad cars.
You're not really evaluating isthis a decent car At that point,
it's is this car great atwhat it's intended to do?
Exactly.
So that's what this list is about.
Top 10 at the best of what they weredesigned to be the best they can be.

(05:06):
Well, let's get stuckinto it. What I'll do,
I'll run through thetop 10 pretty quickly.
Give us a chart rundown and then if youcan give me a kind of word or a phrase
that sticks in your mind, you drove them.
I am loaded with informationthat is only useful for this one
application. So.
Awesome, man. Well that's good to hear.
So at 10 we have be McLaren seven 50 s.

(05:30):
Okay. Seven 50 s is actually,
this is a great time becauseI want to make a distinction.
This list is not my personaltaste because I feel like
when you're reviewing cars, for example,
they're cars that I'llreview that are good cars,
but they're not my personal taste inpar. And so there's a distinction.
There. So you're thinking what is thebest for the majority of the audience?

(05:53):
Yes. The seven 50 s is to my personal.
Taste. Got it.
This is.
Your dream car.
This is like McLaren has beststeering in the industry.
I think this car is, so the seven 50 s is,
I feel like for some people it mightbe difficult to distinguish it from the
seven 20 because itkind of looks the same,
but they implemented a lotof changes from the 7 65 lt,

(06:18):
so it's got the lightweight pistonsand it's just a more slightly raw
experience than the seven 20. It's funny,
in the drive I was sitting with thehead engineer and we're having lunch and
he's saying in between7 65 and the seven 20,
where does the seven 50 fall? And itwas kind of like one of those questions,
let's see if you can figure this out.

(06:41):
And my answer was that it's closerto seven 20 because the 7 65
is just kind of like this maniaccar that the seven 50 is not,
but it just adds, you already havethis crazy almost hypercar speed,
but this just adds a little bit morefeeling. It's a little bit more intense.
The exhaust is a little louder.It has shortened gear ratios,

(07:01):
so it accelerates like crazy,
but it still feels genuinely light.
I love this car for my, ifit were my personal list,
this would be really up there,
But the seven 50 s is reallyexciting, but it's also,
I also road tripped one of these.
So I did the drive in Vegas in Februaryand then I road tripped one of these

(07:25):
from Car Week, which had the Pone seats, which are terrible.
For someone like me, Ifeel like the Cena seats,
I fit more comfortably in the Cenaseats actually because the Cena seats,
you can get 'em in two sizes,
you can change the thickness of thepadding and you can have more room,
but the P one seats are supernarrow in the thigh area,

(07:47):
but this is a fantastic, it could be aroad trip car, it could be a track car.
I drove the seven 20 s atthermal and it had a day in it.
It was just a blast just gettingfaster and faster and faster in it.
How much betrayed would yousay it is on the seven 20?
The thing is the seven 20 is so fast,
it's not really aperformance thing because

(08:11):
seven 20 is kind of the mostthat most people can really use.
Certainly I can use the seven 50is just a little more engaging.
It's a little more exciting, likethe sound, the shortened gears,
it's just a little more,it's a little more manic.
Not quite 7 65, butjust a little bit more.
So definitely deserves a spot.

(08:32):
Cool. Let's crack on to number nine.
The Maserati Grand Cabrio fgo,I pronounce that correctly.
F.
Fga.
Put a little bit of Italian mabo onto it.
This is one of those cars that whenI tell people that it's really good,
they're always like, what?
I've been reporting on Maserati the lastcouple of years and they're really in

(08:53):
the middle of this comeback.I'm driving an MC 20 now,
which we could talk about later, but
they're in the middle of this reallyinteresting comeback where the last 10
years or so, the cars weren't great, theywere still expensive, you got in them,
they didn't feel that great,

(09:14):
but all of a sudden they want to makecars that are beautiful to look at,
great to drive.
And crucially they're doing thisstrategy where they developed the
electric and the gas caralongside each other.
So they came out at the same time.
So this is one of those drives where Iwas mentioning earlier where it's kind of
like a two for one. Sorry,

(09:37):
the photo on the articleis of the ice drive,
but I drove this in Italy just
north of Milan and we did theTV six version and the re,
which is the electric one.
Yeah. How did that differ?
The thing is I like the Tfao a lot.

(09:58):
I think that Maseratis,
the NAO V six gets alot of criticism that's
not totally justified.
I feel like it's actually not as badas some people make it out to be,
but I was shocked at how much moreI liked the electric car because

(10:18):
it's the Grand Cabrio, soit's a convertible big gt
and it rides beautifully.It's really quiet inside,
I think it looks fantastic.
I think it actually kind of looksbetter as a convertible. And Klaus,
which is Maserati's head ofdesign, he's a Grand Cabrio owner,

(10:39):
so this is totally tenfold hat moment,
but I suspect that he made this one lookextra nice because that's probably what
he would buy. He.
Buy it.
But it rides beautifully.It has 751 horsepower.
It can be temporarily boosted upto eight 18, so it's super fast,

(10:59):
but still great to drive. Therange, if I remember correctly,
is in the low two hundreds I think,
which is not great for a grand tour,
but when you get out of theelectric one and into the T,
it rides harsh, it's noisier,
and if you're going for a big convertiblegrand tour kind of experience,

(11:22):
the electric one's fantastic. And as youcan see here, it drifts beautifully on.
It drifts on ice obviously. That'swhat you're going to drive it on.
Exactly. Exactly. That'sexactly what you do.
You take it to an ice track and youdrift it around, but it's great at that.
Only downside really to thiscar is that it's very expensive.
It's very expensive. Thisthing, if I remember correctly,

(11:43):
the starting price is $200,000, which.
That's a lot of moneyfor that level, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. But still greatcar. Cool. Let's move on.
The McLaren Artur spider. That's abeautiful looking papaya orange there.
Yeah, I think that mighteven have a different name.
I think that might be McLaren Orange I.

(12:05):
Think. Yeah, I think they call it papaya.
Yeah.
I think this car I feellike is kind of also having
its own little redemption arc because
launch of the Arturia didn't exactlygo super well. Clarin knows this.
I feel like whenever youissue such a big update one

(12:27):
year into a car's existence,probably you might.
Have missed a little bit.
Probably not a great sign. Yeah,so this drive was actually awesome.
This was in Monaco, and sothis car has updated power.
They updated suspension,
new exhaust.
It basically has a lot of little tweaksto kind of make it the car that it

(12:51):
should have been in theplace in the first place.
And McLaren onboarded alot of people from Ferrari,
like a lot of Ferrari people behindthe scenes working on this car and
you can feel that this carfinally feels like complete.
Also,
there are all the reliability concernsthat McLaren's kind working against to

(13:12):
try to convince people thatthey should get an Arturo.
I think the Arturo isfantastic to drive. Again,
it has that sort of McLaren steering,which is great. The V six is,
it still is a V six, so thesound will never be great,
but for what it is,

(13:32):
it's a 120 degree V six.
So for the 2 96 Ferrari calls their 120
degree V six,
like a mini V 12 and it's baby V 12
I believe what they call it.So this has a unique sound.
It doesn't sound like a traditional Vsix and certainly not like the Maserati

(13:54):
Natuna V six, which is a 90 degreeV six. It sounds more conventional.
This still kind of sounds interesting,has ton of turbo noise. Also,
the fact that it is the carbonmonocoque, when you get the spider,
you don't lose any of the handling.There's no rigidity difference.
There's no penalty really togetting the spider, which is to me,

(14:17):
I do not understand why someonewould buy a McLaren coop
when the spiders drive just as well.
Yeah, exactly.
But you have the.
Yeah, you're drivingaround the hills above.
The co. Exactly, exactly. Andobviously this one is a plugin hybrid,
which is great in that you can start,
it starts with the electric motor has oneelectric motor in the transmission and

(14:40):
that is also your reverse gear.
Okay.
And so would you want to backout in the morning quietly?
I know that a lot of,
if you look at commenters on ourInstagram or anything like that,
they'll be like, ah, itstarts in electric mode.
Where's the noise?
And you can flip a switchand an engine will come on,

(15:03):
but having the ability to back out,
especially I live in Los Angelesin an area that's pretty dense.
To be able to back out of myhouse silently is incredible.
I love that.
I started two blocks down andI'll start whatever because
the McLaren does it. The Ferrari'sdo it and the Lambo does it.

(15:23):
So Malibu breach front homes, right?
Oh yeah, that's exactly whatI do. I look at the Pacific,
I take it all in and then I get in myMcLaren and I mean I go about my day.
Living the dream.
Yeah. But yeah, I think this car,
the updates to the art becausealso the coop gets them,
so there's an updated coop alongside itand if you bought one of the original

(15:44):
Arturos, you can take it to thedealer and have the software.
The engine software of the updatedcar flashed for free. Oh wow.
It gives you a little bit more powerand just some powertrain refinements.
Fair play for.
That. Okay, moving on. Numberseven, the Aston Martin van ta.
This car,
I originally had the DB12 in this spot because

(16:08):
the DB 12 made such a leap
in terms of the way itdrives it no longer,
it has the same A MGV eight as its core,
but Aston Martin does a lot of worksoftware wise and hardware to kind of make
it its own and actually the waythey do the exhaust and everything,

(16:29):
it kind sounds different. And for me,
I drove the DB 12 volante and great,
it drove great. The interior,
the quality upgrades of the interiorare incredible. It's way more expensive,
but I thought overall
for a car that isn't all new,

(16:50):
because when Aston Martincame under new ownership,
they had basically adecision they could make.
They either wait a fulldevelopment cycle and get brand
new ground up cars or they could updatewhat they had and bring something
to market a little sooner.
And that's what they did withthe DB 12 and then the Vantage,

(17:13):
and I had, I've been working onthe draft for this list a while,
and so I had the DB 12 thereuntil I drove the vantage.
The vantage is technically
not quite as refined asthe DB 12 in terms of
you can throw the key to anyone and theycan drive it reasonably fast and have

(17:37):
fun and kind of the carwill be very accommodating.
This thing is much moreof a brute and I loved it.
I loved it. It wants to besideways, everywhere it goes.
It has 10 traction settings,which is kind of nuts,
and you can progressively start dialingit back little by little and you can

(17:59):
essentially
really dial in theamount of angle you want.
Yeah, slip angle.
It's awesome. It's great. Andit's shorter than the DB 12,
but it's crazy wide, so theproportions are kind of,
you can't see it thatwell in this picture,
but the proportions are kind of alittle more extreme and it sounds great.

(18:21):
I think it looks fantastic.
I didn't like the front endof the preface lift vantage.
I think now it looks beautiful.It is very expensive.
This one was, if I remember correctly,
the sticker on this one was 2 91.
Okay.
Yeah. 2 91, it had a hundred,

(18:42):
I think it was like a hundred thousanddollars in options. The preface,
the outgoing, the older vantage,
I believe the M SRP wasaround one 50 without options.
This one starts at 1 98 without options,
but as you can see, you couldreally crank up price with options,

(19:03):
but what a fantastic car. Ifyou talk to the engineers and
they care so much about makingit as good as it can be and
you can see that they've taken whatthey had and they've pushed it.
So anyway.
Great car load of good guys, AstonMartin, really, really rate them.

(19:24):
Moving on to numbersix, and it's a Ferrari,
it's a 2 96 GTS.
2 96,
so the 2 96 CO was Carof the year last year,
so that got spot number one. Thatcar had the Aceto fiorano package,
so it is the sort lighter,firmer, more track inspired one

(19:47):
and also had very hard carbon seats.
This one is the GTS and it's in a muchmore sort of comfort oriented spec.
The 2 96 is just fantastic.
I feel like this car is what the,
it's as good as what the SF 90 was tryingto be, but the SF 90 was kind of the,

(20:10):
it really introduced that concept of theplugin and ular are bits in this car.
The transmission is the same as theSF 90, so is the electric motor,
but it doesn't have anyelectrification in the front axle.
It's rear wheel drive. Okay.818 horsepower. That's a lot.
It is insanely fast thisthing, but it still rides well.

(20:32):
I think it looks really beautiful.
The only thing that holds thiscar back is the infotainment,
which is just a disasterthe way that you have to.
So it's all in the digitalcluster in front of you
and let's say if you plug in yourphone for CarPlay, CarPlay pops up,

(20:54):
moves all the dials out of the way,
and it's just this rectangleright in front of you. Oh wow. So
you are basically lookingat the rectangle of apps.
And.
That's your thing now. Andthen to move out of it,
you have to tap once to wake the thing,
tap it again to then start moving andyou can swipe until you hit the little

(21:16):
Ferrari logo. You click that and then itbrings you into the main Ferrari menu.
But if you get a text or anything,
it pops CarPlay back up and youhave to do the whole thing again,
which is painful. Oh man. Andnot only that, CarPlay is not.
Included. Okay.
It's an optional extra, veryexpensive, optional extra.
Yeah. Well maybe not take it.
Then. Yeah, yeah. But the thing is,

(21:39):
and otherwise near perfect car,
I love the 96 just.
Yeah, don't take that option.
Oh, and this one was $500,000. Okay.Yeah, that's another thing. This one,
yeah, very, very pricey.
The ACE of Fiona car that I drove was,I think the sticker on that was 5 0 7.

(21:59):
It was over a year ago, so 5 0 7. Thisone I think was 5 0 5 with options,
but we're getting up there.
Getting.
Up there.
Speaking of getting up there,Bentley Continental GT speed.
There we go. Look at that. That's a.
Brute right.
There. Yeah,
the continental GT speed isinteresting because I feel like when

(22:21):
Bentley announced that theywere discontinuing the W 12 obviously for emissions
reasons,
I feel like a lot of people were like,
that's the Bentley thing.
That's what really cementedthe Continental GT into what it
is today. Truth is,

(22:43):
I didn't really like drivingit more than I did the V eight.
The VA car was always thenicer drive because the V eight
is obviously much lighter and all thatweight comes off the nose and it improves
everything. Response fromthe front end steering,
everything is improved when youtake that weight off. I still think

(23:05):
the previous generation V eight s isabout as good as the continental GT
gets this car. The newone has that V eight.
Obviously tweaked, which know clearly.
Yes with an electric.
Motor.
And a battery pack in the back.
So it's the same sort ofplugin hybrid concept that

(23:28):
you see kind of in the2 96. You'll see it in,
I feel like this is what's goingto be the thing moving forward.
Of travel.
But you get a lot of thesame sort of features.
You can start it in electric mode.It has a usable electric range.
You can drive in electric modefor quite a while, which is great.
I mean also if you're in Europe in ultralow emission zones going for a town

(23:50):
city, yeah, it it youhave that flexibility.
The other thing that it doesis it gives it a ton of power.
So this is the GT speedand it has 121 horsepower
more than the W 12 speed,so it does weigh more,
but that weight,

(24:11):
so what they did is they put the batterypack kind of closer to the trunk,
and so the car has, ifI remember correctly,
I think it has an almostperfect weight distribution,
and so it still handlesway better than the W 12.
The W 12 speed felt really nose heavy.This you don't feel that at all,

(24:32):
but you have way more power andthen you have the flexibility of the
electricity. I think it also justsounds the V eight sounds better.
I never thought that W 12was particularly like, wow,
but the V eight soundsgreat. I think honestly,
if you have to replace that iconic W 12,
this is a good way todo it. They also did,

(24:56):
as we'll see kind of inone of the cars later on,
they expanded the customization options.
There's a new trim optionthat is this sort of,
it's like black chrome becoming real
popular and honestly, I evenlike the way it looks more,
but I didn't like it in photos originally,

(25:17):
but in person you see itand it's like, okay, good.
Because taking elements from someof the super limited editions
that Ben was doing,
so the headlights and there's littlebits of it that are incorporated
from some of those cars. But yeah,
I mean as far as a replacement forW 12 car, really, really good. Yeah.

(25:40):
Okay. Moving on to.
SUV. Yeah.
Yeah. The Pure sang.
The URA sang URA.
Super SUV. Of course itseems to be again, a direct.
Travel.
In marketplace, but this is clearlythe daddy when it comes to these cars.
Yeah, I have been arguingabout this car with,

(26:00):
because all my friendsare also journalists and we've been arguing back and
forth about this car because I think it's,
it's in top four, so it'sobviously pretty good.
The thing is that it's notgreat at being an SUV, actually,
that's not the thing Ilike about it. For example,

(26:23):
the Aston Martin DBX 7 07, the updated one. Wow.
That is a fantasticbecause unlike the Audi
RSQ eight, the Lamber Euros,
the Porsche Cayenne Turbo gt,
those share a platform.
Obviously they're developedand to be different,

(26:45):
but the Aston Martin rides on its ownplatform and what that car does is it just
handles beautiful. It'sreally, really great.
And it's that concept ofit's fast, but it's an SUV,
but the Ferrari is a Ferrari first.
It just so happens tobe vaguely SUV shaped,

(27:06):
but this feels more to me likea lifted eight 12 than it does
an SUV with a spicy motor in it.
I mean it looks like that as well.
Yeah, I mean, so naturally aspirated V 12,
which is in an SUV isthe only brand to do it.
If you want to considerthe LM oh oh two fair,

(27:27):
but at least modern interpretationof what a super SUV is,
the only one with a V 12and the way it handles it
handles like a super car.
It is not that it's super plantedor because it's still tall
and heavy, but the waythat you interact with it,

(27:49):
you have to rev it or else you're notreally getting a lot down low and it's not
like the Lambo. You can just put yourfoot down anywhere and just boom.
Acceleration is explosive. This one,
you really kind of have to workfor it like you do in a sports car.
You're really interacting with it. Also,
the suspension is great. It also,

(28:10):
I've never driven a car where you, well,
I have but an SUV where youreally need heat in the tires
or else you're mobbing upa road and you're sliding all four and it's just like,
so it takes a little while to reallygrip up, but sensational, I mean,
it has that great Ferrari steering.It's super light, but very precise.

(28:34):
Yeah, I think this is what thesuper SUV should be where it's
super exciting and then you cankind of throw some stuff in it.
It also has the rear hingedoors, which I think are,
they add a little bit of dramato the whole thing. But yeah,
I think this is what I would,if I were buying a super SUV,

(28:57):
that's what I want. I want tofeel something. Yeah, exactly.
You want something that's closer.
To, as you say, close toa sports car than an SUV.
And also it's very designed forwardon the inside. The cabin is beautiful,
the layout, there's so much thought thatwent into making it look really good.
It does have similarfunctionality issues as the 2 96,

(29:18):
just the S 90 kind ofthis new era because,
so the Roma gets a verticalscreen in the center.
It's kind of more like a traditionalcard display. It's a touchscreen.
You can do everything,but it makes it way more
the ease of use because you're drivingand you can kind of tap and exactly

(29:40):
where everything is.
Whereas this thing has alittle dial like yay big in
the middle of the dashboard and that'show you control your AC controls the
direction of where the air is going andyou have to swipe. It's a touchscreen.
It's like this big and you're justkind of swiping and then it also,
it's a dial, but if you'redriving, you're just like,

(30:03):
it's not exactly.
Intuitive.
Yeah, it's more sortof form than function,
but you kind of don't care when thisthing sounds. As good as it does,
it drives as good as it does, andactually I think it looks really good.
Too. Yeah, no, it does.Looks absolutely amazing.
I was horrified when I heardFerrara were going to make an SUV,
but when they did it, it's like, well,

(30:24):
it almost looks like thebread van sports car,
the sixties or something likethat. It's still pretty cool.
And that one's also 500 grand. Okay. Yeah,
it does not surprise me. Yeah.Speaking of a lot of money,
let's move on to the Rolls-Royce Ghostseries two and Cullen and series two.
I can't believe you picked two carsin one spot. That's totally illegal.

(30:48):
Yeah,
so the reason I picked bothof them for spot three is that
they take the exact same approach.
So these are both what youwould and you would consider.
This is a mid-cycle refresh,
and what they did was they leftall the mechanical bits alone.
So.
The engine makes exactly the same.There's no mechanical changes.

(31:10):
The only difference is software updatesto incorporate to account for larger
wheels. That's it. Instead,
what they did is they changedsome of the exterior styling,
but the big thing is allaround Rolls-Royce bespoke,
I feel like Rolls-Royce is one of thosecompanies that knows their customers

(31:32):
extremely well. They're just sortof constantly talking to them,
and so they can make changesto really give them what they
want. I mean, they're payingextreme amounts of money.
So these cars basically,
I mean Rolls-Royces havealways been super customizable,
but now with the expansionof the bespoke department,

(31:54):
you can essentially show up andgive them any crazy idea as long
as it comes with a blank check andthey will attempt it. They will.
Do it.
So I drove the ghost in France
and we were stopped for lunch and they

(32:14):
had this display of bespoke and they hadsome of the craftspeople kind of were
walking around and they hadthis dashboard, wooden panel,
and it had on it an ocean.
It was from the oceanall the way to the beach,
and you could see the waves andwhatever, and they were explaining,
this is a bespoke commission. Someonesaid, put the ocean on my dashboard.

(32:36):
And I was like, okay,how long does that take?
And so I was talking to the head ofbespoke and he was saying that that
one dashboard piece tooksix months because it's the
design phase, then the execution,
and then sometimes they'll go throughvarious iterations of it until it's
perfect and it's this whole process,

(32:59):
you basically have one persondevoted to making this thing happen.
He told me that one dashboardessentially is a trim piece.
He didn't say exact pricing, but itwas five figures, which is like, yeah,
that is.
Some optional extra.
And so they also introduced duality twill,

(33:21):
which is for the firsttime a fabric option,
which is actually kind sick Rolls-Royce,
a unique monogram on the seats themselves,
and you can get 'em hasthis kind of really cool,
it looks almost like a designer bag orsomething like that, but it's great.
The colors are actually really vibrant,which is cool. I think in general,

(33:45):
both the press cars and
because there's morecustomization, flexibility,
they want their customers to sortof go wild, really create something,
make your own color, and really go for it.
And so the average price of eachcar is kind of going up because,

(34:06):
so the head of bespoke is telling meevery single car they make has summed
bespoke touch. No carleaves the factory just.
Run of the moon.
Exactly. Yeah. And so the ghost,
if I could between the toe, the ghosta little bit higher than the colon,
I think it rides better.
Certainly looks better in my eyes.
Yeah, the ghost, I mean,

(34:29):
the thing is you drive a ghost or colonand it's kind of like how do you improve
this? My answer is the specter,but the specter is electric,
and I know for a lot of peoplethat's not necessarily ideal,
especially if you're planning ondriving your Rolls-Royce across Europe
or just long distances in general.
If in downtown Miami where you see quitea lot of Rolls Royces driving around.

(34:53):
And it's great. At that point, thespecter is kind of like, I mean,
it fits what Rolls Royce is goingfor. It's electric, it's quiet,
super comfortable. But yeah, these two,
and also the starting price of theghost I believe is in the threes,
but every single one I'vedriven is over 500 grand,

(35:13):
and I heard that some Lenins with,
if you go really getinto the bespoke options,
you could end up with one that'sin the sevens and it's like
nuts. That is.
Luxury, but that's whatyou expect from rolls Ros.
Let's move on then to P two.The Lamborghini rto, what a.

(35:33):
Fantastic.
Looking car that is.
Yeah, this,
a lot of people got mad at me on Instagramof the way I pronounced it because
I read it in Spanish.
Yeah, of.
Immediately because I think of reto asa word in Spanish. Well, it is, isn't.
It? You think.
Back to ura.
Spanish word.
Right, but hold on, justfor the Instagram Rev.

(35:58):
Yeah. This car is,
so this one is the last one Idrove before completing the list,
so I wasn't sure where it would place.
I had driven a customer revwel to a couple months ago,
and I don't know, somethingmust've been wrong with that car.
I drove that car probably in August. No,

(36:18):
it might've been September. Anyway,and it didn't feel that fast to me.
It didn't feel that fastto me, and I was like,
this thing has a thousand horsepower.This should feel pretty significant.
Anyway, I drove this car and I don'tknow what was wrong with that car,
but this is insanely fast.
It is 1,015 horsepowerin the full Corsa mode.

(36:41):
As you move to the drive modes,it increases the output. Wow,
wow, wow, wow. It is, I mean,
this car is kind of like,it's close to just perfection.
So it is a plugin hybrid. Ithas three electric motors,
two in the front axle,

(37:02):
one in the transmissionif I remember correctly.
But the big deal is it has a brandnew 6.5 liter naturally aspirated V
12 brand new, Which again is kind of like,
if you think about the pun, San hada V 12, the Rolls Royce has a V 12,
and this has a V 12. There's kindof a theme. There is a theme.

(37:24):
Developing here.
I.
Wonder if you could spot what it is.
It's kind of like you startrealizing that when you're working
at such high prices
and you can justifythe hybrid aspect of it
because the car already costs so much,
you can have a really interesting engine,

(37:46):
and I feel like that's kind ofwhere this whole thing is going.
We're going to see allthe very best engines.
We're going to see some really crazy.
Stuff.
At the very highest pricepoints. This V 12 is,
it is not just a naturally aspiratedV 12. This thing revs to 9,500 rpm.
It revs higher than a LA Ferrari.

(38:07):
Then it reads higher than a GT three Rs,
and it sounds crazy. Itis so loud inside the car,
and the one thing that yousee really common in a lot of
German sports cars or the big BMWM cars,
AMGs, whatever, you getthat augmented sound,

(38:29):
and even though it's like, okay, itsounds kind of loud inside the cab,
and I'm going fast,
you feel some of it that it's synthetic,
it's ultimately notreal. This is not that.
This is absolutely grabbing you by theshoulders and you're just like, ah,
I'm here. And it's insane.

(38:50):
It's the noise insidethe cabin is so, so loud.
This also has a dual clutch automaticinstead of the single clutch,
it is way smoother. It's also way quicker,
but it's not perfectly smooth. Theydidn't just totally dial it out.
So even when you upshift, you stillget a little bit of a jerk, which is,

(39:10):
but it's to the point where it'snice. The Aventador was extreme.
You hit that and it was likeclunk. This doesn't have that.
It also handles so muchbetter than the Aventador.
The jump dynamically betweenthat car and this car is insane.
And also I think it looks great.It did jump in price. Also,

(39:33):
you see this is also a theme, anothertheme that's developing this one was
748,000,
which yeah,
the last Ultima event order thatI drove was the Ventor Ultima,
and that one was, I think itwas under six with options.

(39:59):
It might've been around six with options.This one is, it's a considerable jump.
Not all of them.
I saw there's another one in thepress fleet that is in the sixes,
so it really is spec dependent.This car has a lot of carbon on it,
but really, really like wow. The thing is,
the big Lambos have never beenknown for being the absolute best

(40:22):
dynamically. This is really, really good.
The only thing I don't like about itis that the steering wheel has 10,000
buttons on it, and if you're going to dosomething like a really simple action,
unless until you learn it, once you learnit, it's fine. But before you do that,
you're basically just pokingaround. And also, for example,

(40:43):
the powertrain hybridsettings are in these dials,
but they look the same at a quick glance.
One of them is red and one of themis black. But when you're driving,
you're kind of just trying tofigure this out. Other than that,
and it's even more practical,it has a more interior space.

(41:04):
They have more head room. There's alittle bit of storage behind the seats.
It has a floating dashboard whereyou can put stuff kind of under it.
So it's kind of practical, but it's also.
I guess that's the German efficiencyside of the equation that Lamborghini is
these days.
I mean, that's how you pitchit. It it's a real, it's a.
Daily basically. Yeah, absolutely.Okay, so little drum roll here.

(41:27):
As we look towards number one,and as he scrolls very slowly,
it is the Bagi utopia.
What an incredible car that is.What was that like to drive?
So every car on this list, I believeevery car on this list came out.
Obviously it's for 2024, so theycame out in 2024. The Utopia did not.

(41:48):
The utopia was unveiled 2022, I believe,
but it wasn't availableto the press until 2024.
So this car is not one of the,
so coop production is 99units. The Roadster is 130.
If I remember correctly, thisis not one of the production.
This is a pre-production factory ownedcar that they brought out for Car

(42:13):
Week, but I drove it after car week,
and what I kind of talked about in mystory was if you looked at Car week
2023, there were a lot of highpower EVs. That was the thing,
and oh, it's, that's whereeverything is going. $2 million,
2000 horsepower, whatever,

(42:33):
2024 was very different because youhad the Bugatti tur which came out and
that has the naturally aspirated V 16.
You saw a lot of focus on really great
engines,
kind of like we were talking about earlierwith the plugin hybrids and obviously
rest mods everywhere. Everybody had amillion dollar thing they were selling,

(42:56):
which is like, okay,
and that million dollar spaceis kind of getting so crowded.
There are more buyers than ever, ofcourse, And especially at Car Week,
you see there are people walking around.
The guy who won the Powerballwas there last year,
just kind of walking aroundjust like, yeah, exactly.

(43:19):
So there's some people that treat it thatthey'll show up and they're like, oh,
have one of those. I'll have one of that.
And so a lot of people show up withtheir million dollar thing saying,
this is a million dollar.
Experience.
And that's kind of how Iapproach this car. I was like,
what makes this a multimilliondollar experience? And
the thing with the utopia is thateverything is an experience in it.

(43:41):
There's no part of itthat is conventional.
You go to open the door and thelatch is this aluminum latch.
You pull up and it clicksand makes a satisfying click.
It's kind of cold to the touch.
The whole door is in thiscart was exposed carbon,
and the way it swings out and.
Looks amazing.

(44:02):
You step in it and every detailin this car is worth looking
at. There's nothing thatwas just kind of like, ah,
let's put an indicator there, or whatever.
Everything is done so beautifuland you can stare at the
smallest thing and there'smore for you to look at.

(44:22):
We drove this car in Malibu,
and it was kind of like half of the daywasn't great for driving because there
was traffic,
but it did give me a lot of time just tolook around and just even, for example,
there's a little cutout, so the mainpanel of the dashboard is leather,
and you know how the paanihave the quad exhaustive,

(44:46):
so in order for the Bluetoothconnection for the phone to work,
there has to be a cutout on the dash,
and they made this tiny cutout in theshape of the exhaust, and you just.
Look, it's attention to detail.
Right? Yeah, just lookingaround, it's like, wow.
I think the proportions onthis car really quite dramatic.

(45:06):
I think it looks bigger inphotographs than it is in person,
but the proportions are crazy.
The cockpit itself is kind oflike it's in a teardrop shape,
but the coops get, so you haveobviously the big windscreen,
you have your windows on their side,
but there are two glass panelson top and one behind you.

(45:29):
So the cabin is alwaysconstantly illuminated,
and so you don't feel like you're ina car that might be kind of cramped.
Yeah, not claustrophobic.
Exactly.
So you have excellent visibility and it'sjust you feel like you're kind of in a
spaceship.
It is that sort of mid-engine formula,

(45:51):
but it feels different. Everythingabout it just feels like a little off.
It's like this is a mid-engine car,
but it's like everythingis a little bit different.
Then also the steering wheelis a single piece of aluminum.
Everything in the cabin is eithera physical button or a switch,
and they all require a fairamount of pressure to operate.

(46:15):
So even if you're going to operatethe lift, it's not just like, oh,
tap the lift. It's like the.
Lift.
Or, so this one had, Pianioffers two transmission options.
You have the seven speeddog leg manual or the
automated, it's basically the sametransmission, but it's automated,
so it's their automatic version,and it is a single clutch unit,

(46:39):
kind of like what the event editorused to be, and it is savage.
It is, no,
you can kind of treat it like amanual where when you're about to,
so you can shift with the centralshifter or there are carbon fiber.
Paddles.
And as you're about to shift,

(47:00):
you can kind of come off the gas alittle bit and it'll smooth the shift,
but there's no totally dialing it in.
Every shift is kind of like,
yeah, it's, they're all strong.It's like a kick in the back.
You feel It has a V 12, it's an A MGV 12,

(47:24):
but am MG develops itspecifically for paani,
and it doesn't rev that high. Itrevs, if I remember correctly,
like 6,600 in the sixes. So what it does,
it has this crazy amountof low end torque,
and you'd think that it's the exhaust.
You have the quad tips that areiconic and you think it's the exhaust.

(47:46):
That would be the thing that they kindof get to, but it's a turbo noise.
Inside.
This car is such a racket of air.
Whooshing around.
Yeah, whistling.
Yeah. Yeah,
and it sounds almost like there's awind in the car and when you accelerate,
it kind of comes to awhistle and it's insane.
Obviously it's 800 and I forgetwhat the exact 852 horsepower,

(48:10):
so it's crazy fast. It's alsobecause the whole car is carbon,
so the panels are actually made of,
so Paani has its ownblend of carbon fiber.
There's 40 different types ofcarbon fiber in this car, of course,
and so the panels of carbon, butalso all the structure underneath.
Most of it is carbon too,and so it's really light,

(48:33):
but also the rigidity of the carbontransmits a lot of the road feedback.
You can feel it through thecar and through your spine.
It's this crazy kind of, A lot ofcars with carbon mono cox do this,
but there's a sort of, becausethis car isn't trying to also be
super a little bit moreopulent or anything like that,

(48:56):
it's purely for driving, so youfeel everything. The steering,
even though all of the actionslike the shifter, the buttons,
the switches are all, theyrequire a level of firmness.
The steering's actually quitedelicate. It has great feedback.
It's actually a really involving carBecause a lot of times when you drive
hypercar that are like they arecapable of this extreme performance,

(49:19):
they're so good at it thatyou're kind of not doing
much as.
A person. It feels a little boring.
Yeah, the car, so you can feel the caris super competent and this car is great,
but it lets you feel everything.
It lets you be a part of the experienceand also you combine the noise,
the feedback from the road,
the crazy design foreverything, and then the shift.

(49:43):
There's never a moment that you can justkind of get in this car and not think
about the fact that you're driving it.You can't just get in it and say, oh,
what am I going to have for lunch?Or I got to go do this thing later.
It's going to be focus.
Later, Mike. It says, pay attentionto me now. You're driving me now,
and that is the only thingyou're doing right now.
And so it feels really special. Thiscar starting price with no options,

(50:07):
absolutely nothing is2.5 million around there,
but as soon as you start ticking boxesand making requests gets up there,
the Roadster is significantlymore expensive. Also,
like I mentioned earlier, thereare two transmission options,
but an overwhelming majority of peoplethat have ordered this car went for the

(50:28):
manual.
It is a small number that wentfor the automated transmission,
which just makes senseif you're going to have.
It's all about the drivingexperience. You want that experience.
Being able to shift yourself,
and so Paani alluded that I mightbe able to drive the manual car

(50:50):
25, so I'm interested inseeing what that's like,
but when you're spending thisamount of money on a car,
you're trying to feel something.
You're trying to get anexperience that is unique that
cannot be bought anywhere else,and that's what this car does.
It's all about the experience.It's dramatic in every respect.

(51:13):
Yeah, just hats.
Off. It's number one.
Yeah, it is number one for a reason. Yeah.
But just going back tothe top 10 in general,
were there any sort of wow moments foryou when you were driving these cars?
Do you ever get scared in them?
You're driving some prettyhigh performance cars and you might be on snow and
ice. You might be on a beautiful highway.

(51:35):
You are driving a Rolls-Roycethrough the South France.
I've driven around those lanesand they're a little bit tight.
Sometimes corners comeup quick. Any drama.
Along the way.
This last.
Week, any drama that comes from thesedrives comes from the environment,
not from the cars themselves,
because all these cars have suchsophisticated traction control.
They look after you. I mean, as long,

(51:57):
obviously you can start dialing it back,
and some of these cars only reallybecome fun once you start dialing some of
them back.
But even then we're talking about ifyou look at the rear wheel on the utopia
or especially the veto,the tires fricking huge.
There's so much traction and just allthese cars have really high levels of

(52:18):
mechanical grip, so it's like thecars themselves aren't super scary.
You can really kind of start leaning onthem. It's just the environment I had.
It was not on this list,but I drove what was,
I think it might've been the newA MG GT 63 a couple months ago,
and I was coming,
I was in the canyons above Los Angelesand coming up out of this bend and I'm

(52:41):
moving pretty quickly and a deerjumps out in front and I almost
branded it with the three pointedstar. Thankfully I didn't,
but it's things like thatsomebody will come out of nowhere.
I've been driving cars in thecanyons and rocks will fall
Just tumble and hit the carand it's like not great.

(53:03):
Not great.
But the cars themselves are like,I mean, these are really dialed in.
I think we're kind of wellpast the days where you
really are a superhero behindthe wheel. You're like,
I'm really taming this thing.
It's a thing in the past.
No, no, no, absolutely. Theywant to help you go fast.
And obviously this is an amazing top.What kind of just missed the cut.

(53:27):
What was your almost 11thfavorite car this year?
Well, like I mentioned the DB 12and the Vantage could probably trade
places also,
I think the As and the DBX 70 7, like I mentioned earlier,
that one is also prettyfantastic. The thing is,
when you're talking about the mostexpensive cars in the world and

(53:52):
dialing it to the 10 bestof the very, very best,
there are a lot that comevery close, but at this point,
that last little percentagethat separates the good from the
absolute best, the greats, absolutely.
Obviously there are cars that weren'ton here that I think probably would've
gotten a spot that I thinkdeserve to be on here. But

(54:17):
let's see.
Actually what I was talking earlierabout the seven 50 SA car that is
to my personal taste,
the Porsche 7 1 8 K and GT four s.
Yep.
Wow, fantastic. I mean it's small.
It's genuinely small. It's light.
It feels kind of insane with the intakesright behind your ear and the way it

(54:41):
just revs like crazy. Yeah,
that's another fantastic car. But yeah,
I mean probably the Astons. Let's see,
what else? What else? No, I thinkthat's kind of kind of it really.
Yeah. Yeah. And going back to the top 10,

(55:02):
which of these beauties would yousay was the best value for money?
What's the best bang you can getfor your buck on this amazing list?
Probably the archist spider.
Okay.
Probably the urist spider.
The ur spider starts inthe low twos and you can
really get everythingyou want without really

(55:27):
jumping way beyond thatpoint. A lot of the others,
obviously these are at the,because these are the top 10,
these are also some of the most expensive,
so I feel like value formoney here is probably
tougher than it would be ifwe zoom out to the greater 60.

(55:48):
But probably Ur Spider, theirtour spider is probably,
what if I had to drive one carevery day and I wanted it to be as
interesting, but still super usable,I'd probably get the Archer spider.
Okay.
And which of these cars would yousay maybe sums up the sort of,
we were talking about direction oftravel earlier that sort of shaping the
future of luxury or exoticvehicles. Which ones are kind of,

(56:11):
you think this is maybe a little bitmore revolutionary and this is the way
we're going? I'm guessingelectrification is always the hot topic.
In the.
Industry right now.
Yeah, I think there's a split. Ithink the cars over a million dollars,
like the utopia where they aretrying to preserve these sort of big
engines. I think that will continueto be a thing, especially if.

(56:34):
Lamborghini as well where the Big 12.
But these sort of ultralow volume manufacturers,
they get an exemption where they'reable to continue producing the car,
obviously. What are theemissions penalties of a pagani?
You know what I mean?It's funny. So the utopia,
so usually when I go on these drives,you'll get the press packet. I get like,

(56:55):
oh, here's all the informationabout this car or whatever.
The utopia came with a book. TheUtopia came with a near 300 page book,
which I read completelybefore writing the story.
And after the first half is comparingPaani to DaVinci and this very
eccentric thing. But in the

(57:17):
book you begin to,
there's a little detail actually whereit talks about the environmental impact
of a paani,
and one of them is that a bigenvironmental thing is when these
cars are disposed,
but Paani makes the argument that noPaani ever needs to go off the road.
I mean, as long as there'sprobably a little piece of it,

(57:38):
you can rebuild the thing.
And so they're saying everypagani is on the road. It exists,
and so that's part of theircontribution to that aspect.
But I think that forcars below seven figures,
it will be this sort of plugin hybrid.
I really like the way the Lambo doesit where it's big naturally aspirated

(58:01):
engine. You get the best of whatthe big Lambos have been known for.
While you get the benefits of,because this being a plugin hybrid,
it also starts in electricmode. You can move quietly,
you can go through ultra lowemission zones. It can do that,
but then you have reallycool, the really great engine.
So I kind of want to see more of that.

(58:25):
If it's going to be a hybrid,it's going to be very expensive.
It's going to be heavy. At leastgive us a firecracker of an engine.
Let's do that.
Which of these cars do you thinkis going to be a future classic?
If we sit here in 20 yearstime and we look back, oh,
what about those cars of 2024?Which one do you think would.
Be the utopia straight away? The.

(58:46):
Utopia? It's number one for a.
Reason. Yeah, there's 99,they're going to make 99 of 'em.
The will be I think one 30.But aside from that one,
which is obviously such lowproduction, I think Theto,
if we get to a pointwhere the Huon went to the
Terio and that car wentfrom V 10 to V eight,

(59:10):
high revving V eight, so I haven'tdriven it yet, obviously, but
that shift, if the big V 12 car lamb,
the big V 12 Lambos do that and theyshift to a V eight or some sort of
downsizing, I think we'll look back atthis car and be like, okay, that was.
Pivotal.
Yeah, that was a point where there wasa balance of it's naturally aspirated,

(59:32):
but it's also a hybrid.
And so I think that might be one ofthose that we look back on and be like,
okay, that was a highpoint. That was, yeah.
Okay. Well just finally for thisepisode, let's look at 2025. What's on.
Your.
Hit list for.
The test? Well, the Lambo,the Rio want to drive that.
We've got the drive coming up soonof the Maserati, the GT two str,

(59:57):
so we're going to be driving that,
which is the track version ofthe MT 20 that I'm driving now.
That one should be prettyexciting. Let's see, what else?
I think actually for now,
because the year hasn't gottenrolling yet, we don't know exactly,

(01:00:19):
because sometimes in this space,
particular between the time that a caris debuted to when the drive happens,
sometimes it can be prettyshort. So we don't know.
I really want to drive the manual versionof the utopia. I'm excited to that.
I really want to drive one of those.I also funny, so when I drove the ato,

(01:00:39):
I had a friend along and we're comingback down the mountain and we're
talking about this car sensational, andhe goes, have you driven a coing Zig?
And I was like, no.
And he goes that you needto drive one of those.
So that is what's on the, so I wantto drive a cone exec. And then also,
I kind of want to dive a littledeeper into the Resto mod world.

(01:01:00):
I want to drive a singer. I want todrive probably at Gunther Works too.
I think those cars are, they'vecarved out their own space too,
where these cars are also millions ofdollars and they're transacting for that,
and people are seeing thatlevel of value in these resto
mods. So I kind of want toexplore what is that like?

(01:01:21):
I've driven some Resto mods at this point,and they're either very hit or miss.
They're either, because a lot of them,
these are hundreds of thousands of dollarsand a lot of them are just not very
great. They're eitherspectacular or terrible.
There's almost no in between.
So I want to see what this kind ofupper level of the REST Mod world is and

(01:01:43):
what it offers. I feel like there'ssome interesting things happening there.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, these are why you needto keep reading DuPont Registry,
because Gabe's going to have all theseinsights for us going forwards into
2025. Well, that's it for today'sepisode of DuPont Registry Talks.
My thanks to Gabe for turning up andgiving us a great rundown of his top

(01:02:05):
10 cards of 2024. Thankyou so much for that.
Yeah, absolutely.
And join us next time on DuPont RegistryTalks, and remember, drive safely.