BMW M

Now, this is a thing I didn't know, for all you car enthusiasts.

Some of these sports cars that we have that are available like Hyundai N30, I think, or the i30, Mini Cooper S, Ford Focus RS, BMW M and Audi RSs, etc.

They have pop and bang exhaust systems, but only in race mode, I believe.

And race mode is not meant to be used on the road.

... learned pretty quickly how to try and get across to dealers.

And then obviously different roles, and my last role within North America was actually head of BMW M, so responsible for production planning and the, and the brand and development of, of models brought into the US.

Um, and then actually two years ago, joined on the retail side for a, a good friend and, uh, somebody that I've alwa- always respected, and that was Eric and Andrew Haberstatt, um, dealers up here in Long Island, uh, New York with two BMW dealers, and, uh, growing the, uh, the franchises now, so.

So, so you had-

I am a bit of a cannonball run nerd and you know, it recently was just reset.

Some guy in a BMW M five did it in like 72 hours, average speed of like 90 miles an hour and you know, extra gas tanks and radar jammers and all sorts of tech in their car to, to make it happen.

Yet

there is nobody that has ever tried to do Route 66 in the sense of a cannonball run.

46.

So probably 2004, I used to go to a Portuguese cafe with my mom on Harlesden High Street, and there was a car dealership that was opposite.

And one day, there was a Phoenix Yellow BMW M3 cab sitting there, and I was just like, "What is this?"

[laughs]

It's beau- And, and it was, um, a kiwi-

There was a Lamborghini Aventador.

There were two Lamborghini Storados, Aston Martin Vantage, a couple of BMW M cars.

It was ridiculous.

It was absurd.

But, uh, he really seems devoted and dedicated to helping move Cadillac forward and help them, uh, become an established, uh, Formula One team.

Another one, uh, which is, uh, interesting is that, uh, BMW M CEO Frank van Meel has, uh, stated that the, the manufacturer remains committed to the WEC Hypercar and IMSA GTP prototypes instead of, uh, F1.

So they believe that, or BMW's stance is that LMDh hybrid prototypes directly accelerate the road-going M car electrified powertrains in ways that Formula and Grand Prix racing cannot.

And van Meel's characteration of a mo- or characterization, pardon me, of a modern Formula One car or modern Formula One is rather an insular engineering project or exercise that's really disconnected from consumer automotive realities, and that, that's interesting, right? Because we talk about road relevancy and things like that and these trickle-down technologies, and apart from things like ABS and, uh, traction control and semi-automatic shifts and things like that, what sort of trickle-down technology are we getting from Formula One into, i- into consumer cars? So I think that, uh, van Meel's, uh- comment there is really one worth considering and pondering and thinking about.

We got to stop, man.

Michael Jordan just showed up and it's, uh, he showed up in, uh, um, custom to out BMW M six or M eight, like sports car, like race car or something.

And I was like, man, this guy was never get a speeding ticket because it was blue.

It had a flow yellow colors on it.