How Luxury Car Brands Brainwash You to Buy
Sabri Subi goes undercover at five Beverly Hills luxury dealerships to expose their sales tactics. Rolls Royce uses velvet-rope pricing, McLaren employs rude clerks, Bentley leans on craftsmanship stories, Porsche creates ritualized buying ladders, and Lamborghini manufactures scarcity. Each strategy is designed to make you feel like you need the car.
Questions this video answers
Over $530,000 (host later mentions a specific parked model at $545,000).
Some interior options can cost upwards of $20,000; host also mentions about $120,000 for engine and additional packages (e.g., $20,000 pack, $10,000 other options).
About $1.1 billion in sales and approximately 2,000 units sold per year (as stated in the video).
Bentley hand-makes cars, sells about 6,000 cars per year, and makes about $3.1 billion in revenue (as stated in the video).
Approximately $44.6 billion in revenue and over 320,000 cars sold per year (as stated in the video).
Chapters
This is the brand new Rolls Royce Spectre and costs over $530,000. And today I'm in Beverly Hills going undercover to expose how these luxury car brands brainwash you to buy using dark psychological principles. First up is Rolls Royce. I'm heading inside to see what dark tactics that they use to get me to buy. And here is our first suspect. Ross is colorful. This guy's already on to me. So we switched to our secret recording glasses which we've used to capture all of the unseen tactics that these brands use to 10x their profits. Those three features alone cost well over $30,000. If you don't know me, I'm Sabri Subi. I'm an investor on Shark tank. I've generated $7.8 billion for my clients. I let him know that I was a serious buyer and was looking for a new car for wifey. But before I could take this thing for a test drive, I was to check out their bespoke design center. These are all the materials you had to pick from. People do the red. Huh? And this is where the real money is made. It's not only the extras. It's the colors that change.
The color colors in here. There's a color that has actually glass.
Glass.
Just more intense.
Some of these interior options can cost upwards of $20,000. That alone is the price of a used Tesla. Let's take this puppy for a test drive. Feels like being in a cloud. The electric is ridicul.
This is the ultimate rules.
Now here's where he'll pull out all the stops and do the real selling. How long was this in the plants?
100 years.
They wanted 100 years.
They wanted to be electric originally because you can't hear anything in their engine.
He told me that this model I was driving costs a whopping $545,000. 120 grand of engine.
Yeah. But you have a package inspector package which is 20,000 bonded. Up there is another 10 grand. Stereo is 10 starlet. Doors 13. Everything rolls does is extra.
With the cost of the upgrades alone, you could buy a brand new Mercedes.
Where are you going from here?
Rolls Royce are absolute masters at the red velvet rope pricing strategy. The velvet rope pricing illusion is where brands double down on the price. They don't shy away from it, and then they build value to that price. And you think, this is so expensive. It must be the good. The whole time he was talking about this is how much it costs. And he wasn't shying away from the price. He came out and told me Straight away, this is how much all the extras cost and that this thing is going to be $530,000 the arriving next week. I wouldn't drive this to Yosemite, but, yeah, we're gonna go out there.
Oh, you would, really?
But then he went on to tell me about all of the craftsmanship that go actually into this. He used the price to actually build the value and make me want it in the first place. And then just kept on repeating, once you drive in a Rolls Royce, you are done.
Problem is, when you get in this, you're. You're done. You're done.
This goes against everything that most salespeople do when selling. They'll do everything to not tell you the price until they've made their pitch. Where Rolls Roy opposite. They actually drop the price up front and then build value to that price.
The adaptive cruise control, heads up display.
He was a seasoned pro, but this was nothing compared to what's coming next at McLaren. And here we have McLaren. These guys do over $1.1 billion per year in sales. But here's the thing. They only sell 2000 units of their cars per year. As I head inside to check out a brand new 750s, I'm greeted by absolutely no one. No one's coming to help us. Who do we have to wrangle around here? Sell us a 454,000 on the car, bro. Like, it looks like a Game Boy. It's like full analog. Like, not like modern. Especially after being in the Rolls, it feels like it's like very durable, but it doesn't like, it is all carbon fiber. The thing about McLaren is they're all about performance. Half of their revenue comes from merch and the affiliation with Formula one. All right, they were still ignoring me, so I went up and asked about the car. How many of those do you make here?
This is one of 60 in the world that has this.
Bro didn't even introduce himself.
This particular one is celebrating Le Mans.
I don't even know what that means, but it sounds provocative. I've got the Lambo, but my buddies are really trying to convince me to get a McLaren. What would you say are the biggest differences?
This brand is really cool. Really cool. I used to manage for it for four years in Lamborghini for five. Porsche for 10 years. Technology. You're not spending 3 million right now. You're spending under half a million.
What a bargain.
All our doors open up like this.
Yeah, it's sick.
All our car.
Are you starting to sell more? Halfway through his pitch he abandoned me once again to take a quick phone call, and I was back to waiting around for help. So McLaren is clearly using the rude sales clerk strategy. These guys didn't even serve us for the first 10 minutes that we were in there. I had to literally go knock on the dude's office door and be like, yo, we're here to buy a car. All right, we'll do. Once they came out, they were very standoffish.
We're the number one dealer. We've been selling.
Really?
One second.
That's right. It wasn't until I flexed on these guys. I've got the Lambo, did he start to give me the attention that it is that I wanted. There's been studies that show that the ruder that the sales clerk is, the higher the sales and the person comes in with a bit of chip of their shoulder and they want to feel included. And as a result of that, you're being mean to them and they're like, fuck this guy. Like, I'm gonna buy this Lambo or I'm buying this McLaren. Right. Definitely a tactic that these guys use. Most businesses, they do the opposite. And if you're just way too over the top, people don't believe you. They feel like you're just going to tell them everything that it is that they want to hear. Instead, what you want to do is be a little bit more laid back and you're going to make way more sales. I had to chill out after that one. So I headed over to Bentley to see exactly what these expert craftsmen have in store. They hand make each one only sell 6,000 cars per year and make $3.1 billion doing. I don't know much about Bentley going into this, aside from the fact that they're supposed to be really high quality and are really expensive. Right off the bat, this guy greeted me with a handshake and a smile. I told him I was looking for something that I could drive every day back to my 64 million dollar Malibu mansion. What would you recommend?
Is it just gonna be you and someone else?
Usually have, like, I've got three kids, but this is gonna be predominantly for me. He had me take a look at a brand new Continental GT, which starts at a base price of over $270,000. This is the new Bentley Continental GT. When you said that these are hand.
Stitched, literally, literally all the leather you see through this cowhide goes through a mineral dye process.
Okay. This guy went on to talk about the intricacies of the steering wheel for a whole five Minutes grandfather was doing.
It, his father was doing it. It's gener just with the steering angle alone.
Wow.
It's the craftsmanship. These engines, they last forever. It's insane. Really, really beautiful. Harmonious, like in between of luxury and sport.
You can just feel it. It feels great.
You know, hand crafting everything.
Should we go outside and have a look at one? Throughout his entire sales pitch, he kept on just harping on about the craftsmanship and how they make these all by hand. And he kept telling these stories about every single detail. He did a good job of selling them. No, he did start in the believe that. But there was one thing that went horribly wrong during his pitch.
Pardon?
Oh, what's that? Dylan, did you see that? I put my phone in the middle of the dash and he saw, he saw the recording thing and he was like, I just saw like this hot wave of heat run through his body and was like, oh, fuck, that guy was onto it. And I thought for sure he was gonna call us out. I went in there just to see what they were doing. But my God, he told a beautiful, beautiful story. He was talking about how generations of people have been sewing the steering wheels. He sat with the grandfather and saw how he hand stitched everything. I was like, man, like, I might actually buy one of these cars. This guy's doing such an incredible job. And that just goes to show how far a good story will go. And most business owners, they have an incredible story to tell. Just telling people that you go from a merchant to a brand where people are bought into what it is that you're doing and that you are the best person to help them solve this problem in the first place. Next up is Porsche. These guys do an insane $44.6 billion a year in revenue and sell over 320,000 cars. And what's even crazier about these guys is they are the number one luxury and premium brand in the world, beating out brands like Louis Vuitton and Chanel. And the sneakiest move that Porsche is known for is their elaborate price ladder. So let's go on in and let's see they use this tactic on us. The price ladder is where brands lure you in on their lowest cost option. Yeah, I didn't want to come and look at 911. Sure. And then cleverly work you all the way up their lineup until you leave the store spending way more than you had planned to. 301, not bad, man. This feels more loco, way more racy even than like the McLaren. Like, it's all Carbon fiber. Is this the top of the range? Yeah. I asked her to show me the cheapest 911 model. So we headed upstairs. Let's see if she pulls the price ladder on me.
This model is started with Carrera. Then it goes to the Carrera s and they go to the Carrera 4S. Going to be four wheel drive for.
Yeah, I'm looking for an everyday driver.
So definitely 4s is always the best.
She just walked me up the price ladder by $100,000 like it was nothing.
This is a 4S. The new one is around 220.
Okay, so it starts at 220.
Yes.
What do you sell the most? Of course. Yeah. But she was just getting started. I told her that I wanted to buy so she took me upstairs to her office.
Let me go to the website because also turbo is good for everybody.
She's really trying to sell me into one of the most expensive cars. The $243,000 Turbo S. So that's the one you rec man. But it doesn't stop there. One of her associates has entered the chat. But what about picking like the paints and the interiors you can.
They're arranging probably around 20 over now.
We're up to a minimum of $263,000.
Just depends on how many we get. So it's going to be around seven, eight months and it's going to take three or four months to get here. You know the demand is extremely high on this last round. Hopefully we get about six or seven allocations. If we get two or three, yeah, it's going to be pretty nuts, dude.
That was definitely the ritualized buying process. I've ever seen it. Seriously. These guys were telling me that if I wanted to change the color of the car I was going to have to wait a year and a half in order to get it. If you think of anything that is luxurious, you always associate a long period of time either to make that or to buy it. If the process takes a long time to get it then you naturally want it more and you associate a higher level of quality and with things that take time to get.
If you can get your info, just reach out to you. Probably be middle of December when you'll have inventory.
You really feel like you're earning it. You're earning the right to buy this car. That is ritualizing the buying process and that's going to make that person want to actually sign up even more. We are on our way to Lambo in a Lambo to go see if we can buy a Lambo So going to get dripped out as a crypto millionaire. I thought it was. These people don't know what's coming, so we want to see how they treat us any different. I'm going out there dripped out either crypto millionaire or rapper. But we're going on into Lambo. These guys do over $2.9 billion per year in sales and sell over 10,000 cars. And everybody knows Lamborghini. They are like the Gucci of the car market. As soon as you see a Lambo rolling down the street, you know what's up. So let's head on inside, see what are the strategies that they're going to use against us. And I gotta say, this one is by far the craziest. As soon as we got inside, this guy immediately asked I wanted to see their brand new $800,000 River Alto River. I asked him if they sell a lot of units, the number one in the world, but he said that they have absolutely zero inventory. What's the allocation like on that?
No, it's not.
No chance. Zero for how long?
I have 50 deposit. I'm pretty sure that I did like already.
So there's no point even sitting in it. And I can't.
Well, you can feel the size.
All right, let's check this thing out to feel the size. Let's go, man. When I saw the launch video, I was like, I don't know about the shape, but when you see it in real life, they don't do it justice. Dude, Matte Black in this with the back. This is mean. I can see why you got 50 deposits. I'll admit it, this thing was sick. The photos do nothing compared to what this is like in real life. So I asked him what it looked like to actually buy this thing and he's like, two want one? Like, what is. What do you think?
If a car becomes available, it really happens. Some clients order the car and their money situation changed. Then we will say, hey, yeah, I.
Like the matte Black.
Matte Black is sick.
That bitcoin never lets you down. So you saw that the first thing that came out of that guy's mouth was we have zero inventory. I'm like, zero. And he's like, zero. I guarantee you that this guy is gonna text me today at some stage and say that he has found some inventory. This is manufactured scarcity, guaranteed. This is a textbook play for these brands. So I went about my day to see if this guy would text me back and honestly, it didn't take long until I heard from him. Nice meeting you. I'll keep you posted. There is a big shipment arriving on Friday. If anything becomes available, I will let you know. You don't want to hate the player, hate the game. We need to move fast. He's letting me know it's going to be urgent. So if something does come up, I'm going to need to buy this thing immediately. And now he sent me four other messages. Shipment came in early at my sister store. Look at what I found. He found the black with all matte black. Exactly what I wanted. Yeah, I like the matte black with the red calipers, dude. And they had zero inventory available of this.
You're gonna buy it for me, right?
These brands, they manufacture their scarcity. Only been two hours. No longer interested. Question mark. Straight up rude sales clerk strategy. And look, it's a little bit questionable the ethics behind exactly how they do it because they're not being completely true, truthful or forthright. This guy wouldn't stop hitting me up to buy this thing. Two hours later, I have a missed call on a product that I was told they have zero allocation and zero inventory of no chance. Whatever it is that you're selling, there is going to be scarcity to it. The simple act of saying how many items are in stock and that's going to want to make people buy it. So if this video gets 500,000 likes, I'll go in and buy the Lambo. If you like this video, you will love the one that we did on luxury fashion brands like subscribe and I'll see you in the next one.
